


Of immortal souls and tempting monsters

by Frye7



Category: Van Helsing (2004)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Blood Drinking, Conflict, Dark Fantasy, Denial of Feelings, Drama, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eventual Happy Ending, F/F, F/M, Fantasy, Feelings Realization, Hate to Love, Internal Conflict, Love/Hate, Lust, Multi, Religious Conflict, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Strong Female Characters, Supernatural Elements, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Unresolved Tension, Vampires, Werewolves, What-If
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2019-11-06
Packaged: 2020-05-18 23:36:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 59,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19344991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frye7/pseuds/Frye7
Summary: What if after Marishka's death a new, external threat comes into view? What if the vampires decide to help Anna defeat it? What if enemies become something more?





	1. The new threat

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, so this is a story I had in mind for quite some time now, well, just a few scenes of it to be honest. I decided to try and write them down in a whole story and share it, because honestly there aren't enough fanfiction about this incredible movie.  
> This first chapter is a short one, more like an introduction, that tries to take on from the movie into this story. Not so exciting then, but as I said it's more like an introduction, and the very first chapter will be the next one, which I'm already writing.  
> There will be a limited plot development, as I needed the new threath to justify the circumstances of the scenes I had in mind, which are more important for the characters' development, that's exactly the soul of this story.  
> Last thing: English is not my first language, all the errors are mine and mine alone, and I'm sorry for them.  
> Enjoy!

The dawn came with fleeble but determined rays of sunshine, which sprouted out from the mountains around the village to light up its miserable conditions after another horror night.   
Anna sighed deeply, carefully evaluating the damage, and found herself thinking about the beginning of that ulterior problem.

After the murder of Marishka, the younger between Dracula's brides, committed by Van Helsing, she was expecting a retaliation.  
Anna had wanted so badly to go directly after the vampires then that they were at the most vulnerable they had ever been, but she had to think about her people first. So, she had ordered for women, children and elderly citizens to seek sanctuary into the church for the night, giving the priority to the weakest between them. She had also made the priest to distribute holy water to all the people able to fight, and to those who were forced to barricade themselves in their own houses, knowing that these were the most vulnerable against the angry vampires.  
That was all the princess could do to prepare the village to face the creatures' wrath before the night came. She knew it wasn't much, not even close, but fortunately this time she could also rely on Van Helsing and his friar friend. Well, more on the intelligence and the inventions of the latter than on his warrior capabilities, but every usefull skill was welcomed.  
In fact, at their very arrival the two men together had succeeded in killing a vampire for the first time in centuries, which meant becoming closer to kill Dracula himself. But obviously that act, even if appreciated by Anna herself primarly, would have brought unpleasant if not disastrous consequences to all of them.  
So they had prepared, as best as they could, to hold the vampires' homicidal fury off, which they all knew it was coming.   
They most certainly hadn't expected a fierce werewolfs' attack.   
That night, just the first of many others, at least thirty beasts had assaulted the village like a monstrous black flood, while their unexpected howls flew up into the dark sky.  
The holy water and the sanctuary of the church had become suddendly useless.  
The citizens had defended themselves the best as they could, but without silver weapons they couldn't do too much damage. If not for Anna, her men and Van Helsing, who always carried at least one of those, the village could had been completely destroyed. But even them couldn't save everyone. It had been a carnage.  
"I don't understand" Anna had said to Van Helsing the dawn of that first night after the attack "These werewolves can't be Dracula's, he have always had at his service only one at time".  
The man had nodded and added "And why sending them to kill all these people? From their perspective this doesn't make any sense: they need you to survive."  
"Yes, you are right. In fact you are their only food source in several miles" Carl had intervened "I doubt they'd take the risk to move from their home just to avenge the death of one of them. Specially considering that all this blood will be a waste for them."  
"Thank you very much for your delicacy" was Anna's annoyed answer, linked with a glare at him.  
Carl then had lifted his hands to calm her "Ehi, I'm a scientist, and this are simple facts."  
"Yes, and you are also a man of God, Carl. And you should know better than to disrespect the dead like this" Van Helsing slightly glared at him too, until the other man bowed his head and murmured apologies.  
"You are right, anyway. They have been living here for centuries, and have always been very careful not to abuse too much the population to feed themselves. In fact, they always kill one or two people every month, that's how much they need to survive. But they can be ruthless when they want to, see what happened to my family. They don't dislike to make their own hands dirty occasionally, and they are extremely vengeful. The brides in particular wouldn't have missed the chance to try and kill me again." Anna shivered remembering how close Aleera and Verona had gotten to feed on and murder her just the day before. If Van Helsing had shot the arrow that killed Marishka a moment later, she surely wouldn't have been there.  
The monsters' hunter had thought for a moment, then affirmed "I have to inform the Vatican about what's happening here. This could be a werewolves's pack just crossing the country, but if they decide to estabilish themselves here they'll slaughter all of you. We can't fight a war on two sides only by ourselves. And we can't take the risk to wait and see if that happens. We'll need some reinforces before that. Do you have any messengers? Travelers crows? Any way to send a message to Rome?"  
Anna had let a sigh escape her lips "We haven't had travelers crows in many years. They fear the vampires like we do, and don't nest here anymore. Messages and help requests never go after Dracula's territory lines from years already, same as the men we send to deliver them, and if they do, they don't come back. It's not safe. No one is willing to take that task anymore. They are all resigned to live here, keep a low profile and take their chances."  
Van Helsing had cursed between his teeth, then turned to his friend "Carl, I need you to write a coded message for the Vatican in which you explain carefully our situation and ask for weapons and men as reinforces."  
The friar had paled visibly "D-din't you hear what she said? No one exits Dracula's territory, and I'm not a warrior.."  
"I asked you to write the message, not to deliver it" Van Helsing had interrupted him "you'll stay here and try to figure out how to kill Dracula, I'll take the message."  
Anna couldn't have believed her ears "Are you insane? You are the only man to ever kill a vampire and you want to abandon us?"  
"I don't intend to abandon you, Anna" He had answered calmly, staring at her straight in the eyes "I'll carry the message to the port where we arrived, then I'll pay someone to deliver it. It'll take a week, not longer."  
"Didn't you hear what I said? No one leaves Dracula's territory, they'll kill you!" Anna knew she was almost screaming, but she hadn't care. The man before her had killed a vampire, and if in a way that helped them, in another way that condemned them all. The brides would have been furious, not to mention Dracula himself, and now he wanted to leave her and her people alone to face their wrath.  
"Maybe. But if I don't go, the reinforces will never come, and we won't stand a single chance against those monsters. We will be more at disadvantage than we already are." Van Helsing had stared at her until she had reluctatly agreed, nodding "I'll leave as soon as the message is ready, armed by holy water and silver stakes. As for the bullets, I'll leave most of mine here; you'll need them in case another attack occurs. I'll need two of the fastest horses you have; I'll switch them often and do the minimun breaks possible. The daylight will protect me."  
Anna had nodded again: it was a good plan, and his confidence was getting on her, so she had called a couple of men to do as he asked.  
When the light had grown stronger, they had gone to the village line, where Carl had given his friend the coded message. He had grabbed his arm and wished him good luck, then he had left for Anna's residence, anxious to start his researches and to reach a safe, closed place.  
"Her name is Night, she my personal mount" Anna had announced to the man before her once they were alone, stroking said black horse's muscular neck "She will run as fast as the wind, but she won't let you fall. I don't know the other horse, but its owner is one of my best men, and I think it's a good mount. Don't worry: nothing is faster than Transylvania's horses."  
She had stroked Night's neck once again, before meeting Van Helsing's intense gaze "Be careful, and come back."  
The monster's hunter had smiled, and talked back "I'll treat the horses with the utmost care, but I won't spare them, I can't afford it."  
Then he had added, more seriously "Don't do anything reckless until my return. I won't abandon you to those monsters. You are not fighting alone anymore, Anna."  
They had stared at each others intensely for a long moment, then Anna had smiled, a sincere, grateful smile, and stepped back.  
Van Helsing had mounted, turned the horses and galloped away without looking back once, but still Anna had watched him until he disappeared into the trees.

Three days had passed from the monsters' hunter departure, and for two other nights the werewolves had come back to their village. It looked like it was always the same beasts in the same numbers, so it seemed Vah Helsing's theory had been correct. It was indeed a pack of werewolves which had established in that region, and every time their homicidal instincts took over, they took them out on the nearest human targets, which meant, on their village. Wonderful. Not that they could help it, but still, they had already had enough problems without adding this new one.   
The vampires, on the other hand, hadn't showed themselves, which was strange, because even if the clouds hadn't come out in the sky as usually, allowing the sun to protect them, they hadn't come at night either.  
Anna often asked herself if they knew about the attacks and had chosen to stay away. But why would they? They were immortal creatures, and that was their hunting territory, as the friar as told them more than once. So shouldn't they also defend it from new, external threats, instead of only exploit it? And wouldn't they want to avenge Marishka?  
Anna shook herself: wasting her time and thoughts with questions she couldn't find an answer to was useless.  
Instead, she concentrated on something else: the night before she had finally come to the conclusion that, being the princess of those people, she couldn't stay still and wait for the crisis to pass. She needed to do something. It was her duty, and her legacy. She had to discover something more about these werewolves, so she had ordered her men to organize another journey: hers.  
Anna was shaken from her thoughts when the village's priest stopped her to discuss again if it was better to burn the victim's corpses, or to bury them. And as the other times, against Anna's efforts, the discussion lasted longer than she liked, until they decided to call the undertaker to move the corpses into the cemetery, waiting for an ultimate decision.  
"I agree they deserve a proper funeral, father, but in this moment my priority are the living" she has explained to him "We can't afford to waste the necessary time to prepare the cerimony, we need to make the barricades stronger, to take care of the injured, and to fix what can be fixed."  
The discussion was interrupted by the undertaker, who informed them he had moved all the corpses to the cemetery, as asked.  
"Thank you, now go to help with the repairs. For now your services as undertaker are no longer needed" Anna dismissed him.  
But as soon as she finished the sentence, a shrill and evil laughter rang out in the air, and Anna's blood froze in her veins. She would have recognised it between thousands.  
"No" she thought, turning around "not now.."  
"If I were you I wouldn't hurry to dismiss the undertaker's services, Anna" Aleera concluded the sentence with another joyless laughter, while she and Verona flitted before her.  
But this laugh lasted next to nothing, and soon Anna saw the pale faces of the brides contracting in fury and showing her their long, sharp canines, as bloodthirst shone through their eyes.  
The vampires has come, at last.


	2. The truce

The two vampires flew a little higher, their icy, inhuman eyes scanning the crowd.  
Apparently they didn't find what they were looking for, because Verona flew closer to Anna, screaming furiously "Where is he? Where is the stranger? Where is Marishka's murderer?"  
Anna stepped back, trying to stay calm, and answered "He's gone. If you wanted to take him, you are too late."  
Aleera hissed, and Verona asked again "What about the man who was with him? The one who helped him?"  
"He went with him" the princess lied easely, silently thanking the fearful personality of the friar, who since Van Helsing's departure had never left her home, both too busy with his researches and too afraid of the local monsters to go outside. Good idea, that way she could keep him safe, and if the brides thought he was gone too, well, that was even better.  
But the vampires obviously didn't like her answers.  
Verona flew even closer to her, so much that the woman could feel the wind caused by the movements of the monster's wings on her body "If you are lying to us, if you are protecting the hunter.."  
"And why should I?" Anna interrupted her, with the best angry voice she could muster "Those men has caused us more problems than they solved! Or are you not here to avenge Marishka?"  
The name of the murdered bride caused another angry hiss, and Anna swallowed, seeing from their eyes that they really were bloodthirsty, in more way than one. She had to be very careful with her words and with her next moves, or the whole village would have paid the price of her rashness.  
"We are, actually" Aleera answered with a evil smile, showing her fangs.  
At that, Anna put her hand in her cloak's inner pocket, grabbing a silver stake. They may not work on Dracula, but they sure as hell could kill a bride "Leave my people out of this. They don't have anything to do with her death."  
Verona smiled, a false, wicked smile "Oh, we know that, my dear. And that's why we came here to kill and feed only on the strangers, but.."  
"Since they are not here, I don't see why we should go back to the Master dry mouthed" continued Aleera, piercing the princess with her intense gaze "Moreover since we are so thirsty."  
The oldest bride flew at the other's side nodding, her evil smile matching the younger's one, and both their eyes giving off pure excitment.  
Anna froze, feeling the remaining hope of avoiding another carnage evaporating.  
Then, when she saw the vampires' muscles tensing, ready to strike, she made a last, desperate move to try and distract them, hoping that her people would do as she instructed them days before and take shelter.  
"Wait!" She screamed "Do you really want to slaughter all of us? Wasn't your werewolves' attacks enough vengeance on my people?"  
She knew that probably the vampires had nothing to do with that, and that they maybe didn't even knew what had happened, and she counted on it: her goal wasn't to actually accuse them, but to distract them.  
And she succeeded.  
The brides froze for a moment, puzzled expressions forming on their faces.  
They exchanged a look, then Verona asked "What are you talking about?"  
Anna smiled internally, but kept a desperate and deafeted expression on the outside "I'm talking about the three times your werewolves attacked us. Yes, because only one of them making our lives more miserable wasn't enough right?" She chuckled darkly "You absolutely needed to send so many of them to punish us for something we didn't even do, didn't you?"  
She didn't get a chance to come up with something else to add, because after another exchange of gazes, the vampires landed before her. As soon as their bat legs touched the ground, their grey skin and powerful wings turned back into clothing, the claws back into nails and their bat like appearances faded until two beautiful women stood before the princess.  
"We have only one new pet, and we didn't send it anywhere" started Aleera, unusually serious.  
"And we have no idea what you are talking about" Verona continued.  
The two brides stepped closer and the oldest ordered "Explain yourself. What happened?"  
Anna discreetly looked around and, relieved that she was the only human left on the outside, explained more calmly "After Marishka's death, I expected a violent retaliation from you, as everyone else. So I tried to prepare my people to it. But that night it wasn't you who came. It was them. The werewolves." She swallowed as the worry for that new problem came back to her again "At least thirty of them."  
The vampires listened in silence, then Aleera half-closed her eyes and asked, suspicious "How do we know you are telling the truth?"  
Anna scoffed, guessing easely that between the two the redhead was the more excited about their upcoming hunt and dind't want to lose her meal nor her fun, and answered, widening her arms in an inviting gesture "Please, feel free to take a look around. Those monsters did quite the damage, and killed a lot of people. The corpses are still unburied in the cemetery, since we haven't had the time for a proper funeral for all of them. You'll see the truth with your own eyes if you don't believe me."  
A gesture from Verona and the two vampires were flying away.  
Anna took a deep breath, relieved. At that point, maybe she had actually succeeded in avoiding another carnage.  
She kept herself ready anyway, unsure about the brides' reaction to the news and curious about what would happen next.  
The vampires' inspection didn't take long, and soon they landed before her again.  
"You told us the truth" Verona announced, then paused, uncertain, before asking "What precautions have you taken?"  
"As you saw yourself, we built some barricades, but they are not very useful. We are also melting all the silver objects we can gather, to make silver bullets. And I.." Anna stopped herself, knowing that she was saying too much.  
"And you what?" Aleera asked with the velvet tone she always used with the princess, tilting her head.  
Anna hesitated, asking herself what exactly she could say to them about her intentions.  
If she told them she was leaving to find out more about those werewolves, they probably wouldn't have believed her. They would have thought she was finally running away and surely would have killed her on the spot. After all, they couldn't let the last of the Valerious escape, not after the vow her ancestor had made to God himself. Her family would have always tried to kill them, and now that she was the last one alive the vampires were closer than ever to eliminate the threat. And that's why they would have never let her go. So she couldn't tell them.  
Decision made, Anna straightened her shoulders and answered "I wanted to ask you a truce."  
The idea had stricken her suddendly, but she thought is was a good one. After all, she couldn't leave her people without doing all she could to keep them safe from the vampires in her absence. She was willing to do anything, even a truce with those monsters.  
Aleera laughed, but Verona didn't and Anna took that as a good sign.  
She had never asked them, of course, but she was under the impression that between the brides Verona was the one in command. She was always the one givind orders and directing the other two when Dracula didn't. And Anna remembered that when they almost succeeded in feeding on her, just a few days before, Aleera had affirmed she wanted the first bite, and the princess didn't doubt she really craved it, considering the obsession that vampire had always had with her. And yet, when Verona had hissed at her, a clear sign to claim that first bite for herself, she hadn't protested. She had just hissed back, in what Anna thought was more an instinctive reflex than a challenge. In fact, after that, it was Verona that went to bite her, not the redhead.  
Even now, Aleera stood a little, but meaningful, half step behind the other vampire, who asked "What kind of truce?"  
Anna took a deep breath: she could do this, all she needed to do was to convince Verona.  
"I'm just asking you to stop our war until we can defeat this new threat. I'm asking you not to avenge Marishka's death on us, not now at least. We couldn't afford it. And I don't think you'd want the complete slaughter of my people. You need them to survive, after all. Unless you want to leave and establish yourselves somewhere else, leaving your territory to the newcomers."  
Aleera hissed at her provocation, and Verona showed her teeth, but she seemed more worried about what the princess was saying than anything else.  
Anna lifted her hands and added "Well, it's one way or the other, we can't survive with both vampires and free werewolves coming after us."  
At that, the vampires stood quiet for a little, exchanging looks and evaluating her words.  
Anna didn't push them, feeling like she had said all that needed to be said.  
When Verona talked, it seemed to the princess that she had seen the truth in her words, because she said "We can't agree to your truce without talking to our Lord", but seeing her expression it was clear that she was persuaded that was the best course of action for everyone, so Anna considered it a little victory.  
"And what about her?" Aleera asked, her hazel eyes as always unmoving from the princess.  
Before Verona could speak, Anna answered "Well, in case you haven't noticed, I have my hands too full now to keep trying to kill your kind. But, if that's what you want, than fine, I'll make it officially part of the deal. If you'll leave my people alone until this crisis pass, I'll do the same with you."  
Verona seemed satisfied with her statement, but Aleera chuckled and took a step forward, aligning herself with the other vampire "I wasn't referring to that. What I meant is: what are we going to do with you, the last Valerious alive, standing right here, all alone and unarmed, in front of us?"  
She smiled wickedly, but didn't come any closer, clearly waiting for Verona's answer.  
Right when Anna was starting to relax, thinking that maybe she would live another day.  
The princess swallowed, but didn't avert her eyes and took even a step closer to the redhead "Why, do you think my people would stand a change against those beasts without my help and my guidance?"  
Aleera kept her gaze, a little, both satisfied and challenging smile on her lips, then chuckled "Fair enough."  
She didn't step back though, same as Anna. They kept staring at each other, the atmosphere charged as heated emotions collided between their gazes.  
"I suppose that's not our decision to make as well." Verona closed the matter, taking a step closer as well, inserting herself in their bubble of tension and breaking their staring contest.  
The black haired vampire looked at the other one, then back to the princess, adding "We'll talk to our Lord about your request and this werewolves' overpopulation problem. What do you intend to do?"  
Anna lifted her chin "The best I can to protect my people."  
Verona nodded "We'll see you soon then, my dear."  
She turned and started walking away, but Aleera didn't move, and her voice stopped her "Aren't we going to feed at least?"  
"We had just talked about a deal which precludes us that" Verona turned to her.  
"The Master hasn't agreed to it yet. And we can't starve until this crisis has passed." Aleera talked back calmly.  
"We won't. We'll feed somewhere else" seeing the redhead opening her mouth to speak again, Verona continued, a little annoyed "And the Master would want to know about all of this as soon as possible. Don't you agree?"  
The other vampire closed her mouth and nodded, slightly bowing her head in apologies, and Verona turned and flew away.  
Aleera made two steps to follow her, then stopped and, with a last glance over her shoulder, told Anna "Such a wasted opportunity. Oh, well, we'll remedy to it. See you soon, princess."  
A smile, a swish of clothing and wings, and she was following the other bride into the cloudy sky.

 

The vampires reached their castle in a brief time, the fear of the sun and the urgency of the news making them flew faster than usual.  
They landed and immediately headed towards their master's bedroom. He heard them approaching and woke up, raising from his stone coffin.  
"My dears" the count greeted them, widening his arms in an inviting gesture "welcome back."  
The brides dived into his hug and sighed happily. Dracula smiled, and caressed their hair tenderly.  
Even if he couldn't feel almost anything but the most passionate emotions and the pleasure brought by the blood, he cared deeply for them. They were a family. His brides loved and respected him as they did for each others. Yes, they had a hierarchy, but all the brides accepted it as part of their nature, and no envy or jealousy were born from it. On the contrary, their bond couldn't have been stronger. If one of them was harmed, they all would have fought back, their wrath united would have answered. Which led him to a question "What brings you back so soon? I know how much you wanted to go avenge our poor Marishka. I thought you would have taken your sweet time with the strangers and the villagers. After all the pain and the grief for her and our children, you deserved it."  
He felt them tense in his embrace at the mention of their children, and he briefly scolded himself for his lack of delicacy, remembering the cause of that reaction.

The night after Marishka's death they had tried again to bring to life their undead offspring, but they had failed, again.  
Dracula had thought that a new born werewolf, one with the poison still running through his veins, would have been a sufficient replacement to the might Frankenstain's creature.  
Apparently, it wasn't. Their poor children couldn't even make it to the village to feed themselves for the first time; they had died halfway there, his brides have told him.  
They were devastated. After the loss of Marishka, the death of their offspring had been too much for his brides. They had cried and screamed in pain and desperation for hours, flying around castle Frankenstain, and then in the halls where their children were born and had flew, alive, for a few minutes.  
Dracula too had been pained, but angry as well. It really seemed like the good doctor had taken the secret of life into his grave.  
The male vampire had listened to his mates' cries, asking himself what he could try next. If humans and werewolves weren't enough to substain their children, what could? Maybe another vampire? That wasn't a bad theory. He really needed to experiment that. Not with one of his brides of course. Firstly, he didn't know if the procedure would have killed them, but he didn't want to risk that, nor to make them suffer the necessary phisical pain caused by it. Secondly, there was no need to ask them, his beloved brides, when he had many vampire servants who would have done everything he commanded them. No, he wouldn't have harmed his family, not even to make it grow.  
The male vampire had then lifted his blue eyes to look at the flying forms of his two crying brides. They were so beautiful even when in pain. Maybe he could have relieved their suffering if he had told them about his new theory. Or maybe it would have made them just more desperate knowing that he was already thinking about a new experiment, when they had just failed another one.  
No, he had decided, he wouldn't have told them, not yet. And he would have waited a reasonable amount of time before trying again. After all, he may be emotionless, but they were not. He would have given them time to grieve their lost children, and to take out their fury about their and Marishka's death on the humans, if they wanted to. That would have been good for them.  
But not right then. In that moment, they needed him, they needed his comfort, and all the love he could have given them.  
So when they had landed and hugged each others, he had stood and joined them.  
He had spent the rest of that and the following nights and sunny days as well comforting them and being comforted himself. They had warmed up their undead bodies, merging them again and again until finally came the morning in which the sun couldn't break through the clouds.  
When his brides had noticed it, a different kind of thirst had assaulted them.  
Dracula had seen it shone through their eyes: pure bloodthirst, in each and any one of its delicious meanings.  
He had smiled at the view: that's why he loved them.  
The male vampire had caressed their cheeks and told them "Go and have fun."  
Matching evil smiles on their faces, in a blur they had dressed and flew away, while their excitment for the upcoming hunt still flitted into the bedroom.

And now they were back there, far too soon to have caused the carnage he had expected them to.  
He felt them sigh in his arms, then they separated from him and Verona started "We have a problem."  
At her serious tone, Dracula straightened his shoulders and asked "What kind of problem?"  
This time it was Aleera who answered him "Werewolves, Master."  
He blinked twice, then just ordered them to explain.  
"It seems like there is a pack of werewolves moving and killing freely in our territory, my Lord" Verona started "They had attacked the village twice now."  
"A pack of those beasts? Here? That's not possible, I have been in controll of every werewolf bitten and turned in my territory for centuries!" Dracula almost screamed, then asked "Are you sure that's not a trick? To keep us busy searching around for a fake threat while the humans plot something against us?"  
Usually he wouldn't have worried so much about the Valerious' stupid plans to kill him and his kind, but they had just lost Marishka. That had shaken a little his confidence. Furthermore considering that happened the very first day the strangers had arrived. That had been such an unpleasant surprise that he didn't want anymore of them for the next century, thank you very much.  
"We were suspicious too, my Lord" Aleera answered, unusually serious "But we saw the corpses, so many of them. And the damage at the village. The Valerious princess thought it was us which sent the beasts, to punish them for Marishka's death. She said they were expecting it, and were prepared to fight us, but instead it was the werewolves that came. She said they made a carnage."  
"And she didn't lie." Verona added "It was a disaster down there."  
Dracula looked at them in silence for a moment, then started walking before them, thinking.  
"What are we going to do Master?" Aleera asked "We can't let them live and kill freely in our territory. There's too many of them, they'll slaughter all the humans and we'll be forced to move and establish somewhere else."  
"Yes" Verona agreed "And our children can't be born in the nearness of such a threat. I'm not seeing them alive for a few days just to be killed later by those beasts."  
At that, Dracula stopped. They were right, both of them. They couldn't concentrate on giving life to their offspring with that new, big threat in their territory. The vampires knew very well that a werewolf could hurt them, and also actually kill Dracula. That was the only way to kill him, and their most important secret. That was why Dracula had the cure for the werewolf's poison, and why he had made sure to add in his pact with the Devil that after the midnight of their first transformation, those beasts would have been forced to be at his commands. Furthermore, he had used his first werewolves to show his brides the way they fight, their weaknesses, and everything else useful for them to know if they had ever found themselves fighting one. They had learned very well, to the point that finding in that situation would have been more cause of fun to them than of anything else. Those proved to be excellent ideas, since the possibility of fighting those beasts seemed very real now.  
Now, the secret of their vulnerability to werewolves was at risk, as well as their safety, for the very first time in their lives. Dracula intended to eliminate that risk as soon as possible, whatever it took.  
"You are right" he said, turning to his brides "No other werewolves are tolerated in our territory but those under our controll." He thought for a moment, then asked "You said Anna Valerious thought it was us who sent them, so I take it she is still alive?"  
"Yes, Master" Aleera answered "We know you want her dead, and we were about to satisfy your desire. After all, you know your wish is our command."  
"But the Valerious proposed a truce" Verona continued "She asked us to stop our war until this crisis has passed. She will stop persecuting us as well."  
Dracula laughed, both astoniched and admired by the woman's courage.  
"And I suppose that include not feeding on her people as well?" His brides nodded, and he continued "And why would I grant them that?"  
"She said they can't live in a place where both vampires and werewolves come after them" Verona thought for a moment, then added "I think that if it becomes too much for them, they'll leave, my Lord. And that wouldn't be such a problem if the other human settlements weren't far from here, but they are, enough to be a nuisance for us."  
"Mm, and what about the strangers?" He asked, still thinking about his first bride's answer.  
"They escaped" Verona hissed, still furious about it.  
The count frowned at the new, but then sighed and commented "If that's true, I don't think we'll ever see them again, if they know what's the best for them. It's useless to torment ourselves with the thought of them any further then, but if they ever come back, we'll make them pay for what they did to our family, I promise you. Now, what about Anna Valerious?"  
"We let her live, Master" Aleera answered "She pointed out that withour her help and her guidance her people would never live through what's coming."  
"Well', that's true" Dracula intervened "Her family's members and sworn men have always been warriors, while the other humans living here have always been nothing more than brave peasants, not at all a force to be reckoned with" he paused, and then asked "What is she going to do? If I know her, she won't sit still and wait for my answer to her proposition."  
"She just said she will do the best she can to protect her people" Aleera answered again "And she said it like she really meant it, my Lord."  
"She is surely planning something." Dracula started pacing again, low measurate steps, thinking about the best course of action.  
When he turned to his brides again, he talked with such a confidence it was clear his decision was definitive "Very well, that's what we are going to do: Verona and I will go to Budapest, to gather all our vampire servants and allies, as we'll need our whole force to face this threat. And if we greatly outnumber them, even better."  
He waited for his first bride to nodd in confirmation, then added, looking at this younger one "Aleera, you'll go back to the village and keep an eye on Anna Valerious. You'll tell her we accept her truce and you'll offer her your help, and see that she does respect her part of the deal and not plot anything against us. And if she decides to go fight the werewolves herself, as I suspect she wants to, you'll go with her and see what you can discover about them. Numbers, location, hierarchy, anything. But you won't put your life in danger uselessly, both of you."  
He paused, watching the redhead. She seemed excited about her task, like a child who knew she was going to have so much fun, but the wicked smile on her lips made him understand that he should be more precise with his dispositions if he wanted to realize his new plan about the princess, so he added "But you will not harm her. On the contrary, as I said, you will have to protect her. I intend to keep my word: we all will respect the truce. And if she survives, I'll evaluate is she is suitable for…" Dracula stopped his sentence, asking himself if it was wise to tell them then or later.  
His plans for the princess have changed: seeing her bravery, her strenght, her determination in opposing to beings so much more powerful than herself had caught the count's attention. He had had this idea in mind for a while, but now that he had lost a bride, well, he didn't see why he shouldn't make her one. After all, all his mates were strong and beautiful women, and she was both as well. Furthermore, is she became a bride, the Valerious' threat would be no more, as the last family member would be loyal to him, and never again thinking or being able to harm him.  
Dracula smiled, pleased by his flawless plan, then looked at his brides. They were looking back at him with furrowed eyebrows, the confused expressions on their faces probably caused by his order to protect the princess and his prohibition to harm her, when until that very day they were ordered to kill her, instead.  
"Well" he thought "They deserve an explanation, and they'd find out my intentions eventually anyway" so he decided to tell them "When the werewolves are defeated, I want to take Anna as my new bride."  
Verona hissed and stepped back, distraught, while Aleera just stood still, looking at him with wide eyes and half open mouth.  
"Another bride?" Verona asked, his tone both aggravated and high at the same time "We had just lost Marishka and you are already thinking about replacing her? Do we mean so little to you? Do you have a heart at all?"  
Dracula gritted his teeth, feeling sorry to have caused them other pain, but he answered calmly, coming closer to his eldest mate "You know my heart's been dead for centuries now. And you also know that every ounce of love I am able to feel is all for my brides, and my brides only."  
He caressed Verona's cheek, then raised an arm to Aleera, who still hadn't moved nor said anything, inviting her to take his hand and come sharing their affection. The redhead did, but he still couldn't decipher her expression.  
"Why the Valerious?" Verona asked, breaking his contemplation of his other bride's face.  
The count turned to her and answered "Because she will make this family even stronger than before. And because she will no longer be a threat to us as one of our kind, a bride most of all."  
He saw the realisation settling into their eyes, and when they smiled wickedly he smiled back, pleased.  
"You are very wily, my Lord" Verona complimented him.  
"We'll make sure to grant your wish" Aleera added, finally focussing on her mates once again.  
Dracula hugged them, as always satisfied when they accepted his will and willingly submitted to it.  
"Then it's decided." The count said, taking their hands "Verona and I will leave for Budapest and you, Aleera, for the village as soon as the sun goes down. But now, let's enjoy the rest of the day together, and say a proper goodbye, since we don't know when we'll be reunited again."  
His brides smiled and, after exchanging a mischievous look with each other, they grabbed his hands harder and guided him to their bedroom.

 

Little did they know, Anna had finished the preparations for her journey and given her final disposition to his sworn men and other important persons of the village, as well as Carl, with whom she had a long chat before heading to the village's border.  
The princess had prepared her people as best as she could, against werewolves and vampires; there was nothing more she could do there, a part from waiting for their enemies to attack. But Anna Valerious wasn't someone who waited for her enemies to strike. She'd strike them first. But she couldn't do that without knowing anything about them. So now it was time for her to go and discover something more about those werewolves, the bigger threat. Anna wished her people good luck, promising she would have come back, then she mounted on her horse and guided it to the tree line, soon disappearing into it.  
Her journey had begun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the very beginning of the story, I hope you like it! Let me know what you think!


	3. Reluctant allies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, thank you for the comments, they are very much appreciated! It's reassuring to know that I'm not the only one still thinking about this movie!  
> Enjoy!

As soon as the last rays of sunshine disappeared behind the mountains, Aleera kissed Dracula and Verona goodbye and left for the village.  
She flew high, studying the forest nearby carefully. Once she was sure there weren't signs of an upcoming werewolves' attack, she headed towards the princess' residence. Since all the windows were closed, and she wasn't there to cause any trouble, even if she wanted to, she graciously landed at the castle's entrance and knocked at the door.  
A few moments of silence passed, before she heard clumsy steps quickly approaching and a man opened the door.  
He froze when he saw her, a reaction she got a lot, that gave her the chance to take her time in studying him. Normally she wouldn't have cared, but this man looked familiar.  
The vampire half-closed her eyes, looking at him from head to foot and, thanks to her being a creature of the night, easely catching all the details even with the dark. Blonde hair, blue eyes and a religious clothing and cut of hair.  
The bride's eyes widened when she recognised him, and she hissed and pushed him hard enough to send him inside the castle and against a wall.  
Aleera felt her canines grow and knew that her eyes were glowing purple, natural answers to her rage "You are the man who helped the stranger killing Marishka, aren't you?" She asked with a low tone, taking menacing steps closer to him. It was, of course, a rhetorical question. It had taken her a few moments, because that inauspicious day she had been more concentrated on hunting Anna than on what was happening with the newcomers, so she had spared just a few glances at them, but now she had recognised him.  
The man in front of her was shaking almost violently, and if she hadn't been so enraged she would have probably found it very amusing. But she was, so she kept piercing him with her furious glare and advancing on him. After all, just a few days had passed from Marishka's murder, and her death had yet to be avenged. They could have remedied to that the previous day, if not for Anna's request…wait, the truce!  
That thought took Aleera back to reality. A reality where she couldn't kill nor feed on the man before her, and not because of the crucifix he was holding on for dear life, but because her Master had decided to honor Anna's truce, and commanded her brides to do so as well. And even if he wasn't part of the the princess' people, killing him wouldn't have made her task easier with Anna. Furthermore, he wasn't the one who had fired the mortal blow to Marishka, that had been the other stranger. So his death wouldn't have given her enough satisfaction to consider all the consequential trouble with the princess worth it.  
The vampire gritted her teeth in frustration, hating that deal already, and retreated her fangs, lifting her hands in a calming gesture "That's not necessary. My Master has accepted the princess' truce, so I can't harm you." She kept her eyes purple, though. Even if she couldn't kill him, that didn't mean she wouldn't have kept him afraid and on the edge for the entire time of their conversation. It was the bare minimum he deserved, and it was always so, so much fun to play with men like that.  
He didn't lower the crucifix, but her words seemed to at least give him back the capability to speak, as he repeated, astonished "Dracula has accepted the truce?"  
"Did I stutter?" She replied, already annoyed by this pathetic man "Yes, he did. And he sent me here to help Anna, where is she?"  
That particular order had been a surprise for her, but not an unpleasant one. Aleera had recently noticed that the other woman's presence particularly attracted her, like a magnet. Every time she and her sisters attacked the village, she would always catch herself seeking the princess out and waiting for her to arrive on the scene. And when she inevitably did, the redhead would always be the first to notice and go after her. She would mock her, play a little with her, and try to have fun while also attempting to kill her. Maybe that was why, despite her Master's orders, which she had always followed with great zeal, she had never succeeded in ending her life. She probably would have missed her favourite prey, since the other humans were so boring and easy to kill. Anna was different. The human's eyes continuously challenged her, and she had never once given up, not even when her chances to survive their encounter were next to none. Her will to live, her determination in opposing to them, her fierceness were all things that caused a little admiration in the vampire. They also amused her, even more when she thought about how delightful it would have been to finally crush them, as well as the faith and the hope of the princess. Aleera craved that moment almost with the same intensity with which she craved the one when she'd finally taste her blood for the first time. The vampire licked her lips just at the thought of that.  
"Um, well.." the man's first words after what had apparently been a moment of reflection for both of them took her attention back to him, same as her icy gaze; he swallowed and continued "She's not here."  
Aleera wided her eyes, astonished. Surprise, suspicion, rage and even a little fear mixed in her. See, on the contrary of Dracula, who could only feel very powerful emotions, besides carnal pleasures like lust for the flesh and for the blood, his brides were not at all heartless or insensible. They could, in fact, feel the whole vaste range of human emotions with great intensity. And that same intensity could make them react very passionately and, in some cases, very violently, to the events that touched their lives.  
So it were only the truce and the indecision about what emotion she should act on first that kept her frozen in the spot and didn't let her jump at that pathetic's man neck. She did showed him her teeth though, as she asked "And where is she? Why is she not here?"  
The man swallowed, tightening his grip on the crucifix to the point that his knuckles blanched, and answered "Sh-she said she wanted to discover something more about the werewolves attacking the village. She thought it was the only thing she could do instead of just waiting for a new assault. So, as soon as the defenses were ready and the villagers armed, she prepared her equipment and left."  
At that explanation, Aleera's shouldres relaxed a little. That meant the princess hadn't run away from them, nor she was plotting against them. Then she half-closed her eyes and asked "Wait, she's gone alone?"  
The man noticed the urgency on her tone and didn't let her wait his answer "Yes, she didn't want to take away anyone that could help defend the village."  
Aleera cursed under her breath; of course the princess wouldn't have thought at all about her safety, in favour of that of her people. Well, it would have been just the two of them then, in that absurd mission of hers, and that meant even more fun for the vampire. But only if she managed to reach the woman before she run into troubles. Then, she would have made sure to be herself her only trouble in that journey. That brought a smile on her lips.  
"When exactly did she leave?" The vampire asked.  
The man thought for a moment, then answered "Just after midday. She wanted to exploit as many hours of light as possible."  
The bride nodded and spoke to herself "Then she has several hours of advantage on me."  
The man furrowed his eyebrows and asked "You want to follow her?"  
The vampire took her inhuman eyes back on him, silently debating if he was worthy of an answer or not; then she decided to concede it to him "The Master wants me to help Anna, and that's what I will do. Which direction has she taken?"  
This time the man hesitated, clearly not trusting her intensions.  
Aleera noticed, and half-closed her eyes "I asked you nicely once, I won't do that again. And you really don't want to keep me from obeying my Master's orders" she warned him in a low, threatning tone.  
The man swallowed and opened his mouth to say something, but she continued "I'll find her sooner or later anyway, but if you help me, I won't unleash all my rage for my sister's death on you. Not right now at least" she smiled threateningly at him, making her fangs grow.  
He paled and asked "W-what about the truce? You can't harm anyone here."  
The vampire's smile widened as she answered "Wrong. I can't harm or feed on Anna's people because, as she said, they have nothing to do with Marishka's death. But you aren't part of any of these categories, are you?"  
The bride could see each and any drop of sweat running down his forehead and neck, as well as sense every single thump of his heart. It always pleased her to perceive her victims' vital organ accelerating as she approached them. Now it was no different, but she didn't have the time to appreciate all the delicious sensations his fear caused her. She had a mission. Furthermore, if she had let herself savouring those little, important details, her vampire instincts could have kicked in, and she could have bitten him. Considering that she hadn't feeded herself in a while and that she wasn't used to hold back when she wanted or needed something, especially blood, she didn't want to take that risk. But she would have bitten him and ended that pathetic waste of her time if he didn't answer her soon.  
So she slightly inclined her head and moved her inhuman eyes on a prominent vein on his neck, taking a step closer to him and murmuring "Tick, tock.."  
"Okay!" The man almost screamed, pressing himself harder against the wall behind him, in a useless attempt of getting away from her "She headed north! If you go to the northern border of the village you'll find her horse's traces."  
Aleera smiled and took a step back, relaxing her body "See? Was that so hard?"  
The man swallowed and muttered under his breath "May God protect her and forgive me."  
"Don't worry, the Devil has already forgiven you" she told him while walking away "And He has sent me to protect her."  
She was at the door of the castle already when she heard his sharp intake of breath at her answer, so she turned to look at him "What?" She asked with a mocking tone "Not close enough for you?"  
The redhead vampire then laughed and flew away in the night.

Anna was carefully tracking the werewolves' pack from hours.  
She had pushed her horse to a slow but steady rhythm, trying to both cover as much ground as possible and keep her mount's energy high. The princess knew how much they would need it in case of an attack.  
She patted her horse's neck. It was a good mare, but it couldn't be compared to her own, which was stronger and faster and so well trained that Anna knew it would have followed her lead in every situation, no matter how anxious or terrified it was. But the princess had given her trusted Night to Van Helsing, so she had had to arrange herself.  
The traces were full in view on the ground, and very easy for her to follow, allowing her to go faster than she would have thought and cover a good distance.  
Anna exploited as much hours of light as possible, then, when she saw the sun going down, she dismounted and leaded her horse far from the traces, marking the trees as she passed them.  
She didn't know if the werewolves would come back to her village tonight, nor if they would have taken the same way as before, but she didn't want to risk meeting them. Not now, at least. So she advanced into the trees for a while, then, after putting a reasonable distance between her and the beasts' traces, she she stopped and made the fire.  
Anna tied her horse, debating for a couple of minutes about taking off the saddle from his mount or not. If she did, the horse would have rested better, but, in case of an attack, she probably wouldn't have had the time to put it back on. But that wouldn't have been a big problem at all. In fact, her equipment was all in her backpack, and being her a gipsy she had ridden a lot of time with nothing between her and the horse. For a major part of her childhood she had even considered the saddle just a luxury which she could easely live without. She thanked her father and her culture for raising her with the same training as her brother's. Sure, it hadn't been easy, but she wouldn't have had it any other way. It was part of the person she was that day, and she was proud of it.  
At the end, she took off the saddle, sat down near the fire and started eating.  
She didn't even get to finish her meal that the howls started.  
Anna stood up, listening carefully. Maybe she was wrong, but those soundes didn't seem to come from werewolves, they were far too weak and normal, while those of those monsters were stronger and more like roars than howls.  
Her suspicions were confirmed when a pack of very common wolves appeared before her.  
The gipsy princess studied them. They were about twenty animals, and all so thin that even in the weak light of the moon she could see their ribs under the stretched fur. They seemed nervous and very, very hungry. Probably because the presence of so many werewolves in the forest had damaged them too, making the most part of their preys to escape. And now there they were, studying her with ravenous eyes, like she was the new prey. But the couldn't have been more wrong.  
Anna's first though was to shoot them, only to remember that her gun was charged with silver bullets, which she certainly didn't want to waste with common wolves. Furthermore, she didn't want to attract the consequential attention that using a gun in the forest's silence would have brought to her.  
So Anna slowly unsheathed her sword and her silver knife, and readied herself. She had never fought a pack of wolves by herself, but comparing them to the vampires and the werewolves, it surely wasn't the scariest thing she had ever done. Or the most dangerous situation she had ever faced.  
The princess tensed her muscles, but the wolves weren't looking at her anymore. Most of their hungry gazes had in fact moved on her horse, which was nervously pounding the ground.  
No. She couldn't remain without her mount. If so, her chances to complete her mission and come back to her people alive would have been next to none. And her family would have never entered the Heaven. And she couldn't let that happen, not for something so stupid like an hungry and mangy pack of common wolves. No, she wouldn't have let them to come near her horse.  
She put her silver knife back into her pocket and took a throwing one. She studied carefully the pack, until she found what she was looking for: a large, black wolf, probably the alpha snarling at her. She threw the knife right between his eyes and then attacked the others with her sword.  
She didn't stop to see if she had killed their leader or any other wolf she had hit, she just kept going, lowering her sword fiercely against the astonished animals, trying to hurt as many of them as possible. The princess didn't want to slaughter them, didn't feel any joy in hurting them, but she knew that was a fight for survival, and that it was them of her. And she needed to continue her journey and come back to her people alive. So, as much sorry as she could be, she didn't let her compassion and her pity for those animals to get in her way. She couldn't allow them to.  
The wolves, shocked by their alpha's sudden death and by her fierce assault, firstly tried to avoid her blows, snarling and whining. Then some of them tried to attack her as well, but they were so exhausted and hungry that their attempts were weak and unsuccessful. Soon, they all were fleeing and retreating back into the depths of the forest, howling in pain.  
Anna let them, but stood waiting for their return for a couple of minutes, ready for a retaliation.  
When nothing happened, she relaxed, sheathed her sword and went to the black wolf's body to recover her trowing knife.  
She crouched and grabbed it, then stood up suddendly, gun in hand, when a voice startled her.  
"Not bad, not bad at all, princess."  
And there, graciously and seductively laid on the lowest branch of the tree before Anna was Aleera, bathing in the moonlight.

Anna just stared at her, incredulous.  
"What, are you not happy to see me?" The vampire asked, then chuckled and jumped, landing lightly in front of the woman.  
The princess lifted her gun to her chest, knowing that it couldn't stop the bride but it definitely made her feel safer, something she needed in that moment, and asked "What are you doing here?"  
The smile on the redhead face turned compliant "Now, now, Anna. Is that any way to greet an ally?"  
The princess furrowed her eyebrows and asked "An ally? What are you talking about?"  
Aleera kept her smile as she informed her "My Master has accepted your truce, your people have nothing to fear from us for now."  
Anna disclosed her mouth, shocked. That was fantastic news. She had proposed the truce mainly to distract the vampires and to buy some time, but she had never really thought that Dracula would have actually accepted it. That meant her people were safe from him and his brides at least.  
"That's wonderful news, thank you!" The princess didn't want to thank her, but she couldn't help it, as she couldn't help the very first genuine smile she had ever directed to Aleera to form on her lips.  
The redhead seemed surprised by it, judging by her expression, but pleased as well, if her answering equally sincere smile was anything to go by.  
Anna enjoyed it and that little peaceful moment for a little time though, as a thought came to her and her guard and walls turned high again "That's wonderful news indeed, but even if I appreciate it, I doubt you came all this way just to inform me about them."  
Aleera chuckled "Clever woman. No, I didn't come all this way just to inform you. I'm here to escort you on your journey."  
That Anna really hadn't expected "What? Why would you do that? And why would I accept it? Why should I trust you?"  
The vampire took a step forward, to which Anna immediately stepped back "My Master asked me to offer you my help in this crisis and to protect you, and his wish is my command. Also, he is a man truthful of his word, and he accepted your truce, so I won't break it either, as well as Verona. That's why you can trust me, and if you can't, well, trust my loyalty to my Lord's orders."  
Anna shook her head "Why would he send you to protect me? What does he care if I die?"  
At that question, Aleera hesitated for a moment, and something flashed in her eyes, but the princess couldn't grasp it before she answered "Well, we didn't know about the current problem, and the Master greatly appreciated you bringing it to our attention. My Lord also admitted that the peasants wouldn't last a day without you, and he and Verona couldn't stay to help; that's why he has sent me for that. Neither I nor them expected you to be gone though." She concluded with a scolding, pointed look at the princess.  
Anna lifted her chin "I've never said I would have stayed there. I said I would have done the best I could to protect my people."  
"And how is going after a pack of werewolves alone the best way to do so?" Aleera harshly interrupted her.  
Anna took a step forward, not accepting from what she considered a selfish bloodsucker a critic about how to protect her people "Doing nothing wouldn't have helped them either. The best way to protect them is to defeat this threat definitively, and I can't if I don't know anything about it. And it's not like I left them unprepared." The gipsy lifted an eyebrow, challenging the vampire to disprove her.  
"No, you didn't" the redhead admitted, but she didn't let the princess talk "but you should have waited for our answer to your request before doing something like that."  
"And why should I have lost more time? I didn't owe you anything, and I did respect what I've told you" was the princess' annoyed answer.  
Aleera half-closed her eyes and answered "Yes, you used cleverly your words so not to lie about your intentions. But you did lie about something else."  
Anna frowned, confused "What are you talking about?"  
The vampire's gaze pierced her "You said both the strangers had left the village" she let her words sink in, and observed pleased as the princess' face paled, realisation settling in, before concluding "You lied."  
Anna's eyes widened. She had completely forgotten about the friar.  
"Carl…" she wispered, lowering her gaze, then she lifted it again, meeting the vampire's and gritting her teeth "If you have done something to him.."  
"I'd really like to see what you would do to punish me, Anna" Aleera answered right back, interrupting her, and her words, her low tone and heated gaze combined with her suggesting smile sent many shivers down the princess' back.  
"Unfortunately" the vampire continued after a few, heavy moments "I didn't do anything to him."  
Her words took Anna back to the present, dissipating the emotions and the images that the vampire's answer had evoked in her mind, and she asked, puzzled "You didn't?"  
"No, even if I wanted to. He isn't part of our truce and he did help killing Marishka, so I had every right to" her eyes flashed with rage for a moment at the mention of the act, but the redhead continued calmly "But I didn't. He told me about your suicidal mission, helping me to find you, so I let him be. Also, I figured this way his death wouldn't have poisoned our upcoming friendly relationship." She smiled sickeningly sweet at Anna. "I did keep him scared all the time of our conversation though."  
Anna snorted, relieved to hear that he was alive and unharmed but also amused "That sounds more like you."  
The princess slightly lowered her gun, uncertain.  
"You are not going to kill, harm or feed on me then?" she asked.  
"The truce protects you, princess" was the redhead's calm answer.  
"And you won't take me back to the village?" Anna asked, sure that the vampire agreed that was the best course of action. Little did she know that Dracula had ordered his bride to accompany her if the princess, as he suspected, couldn't stay still and wait at the village.  
"No, I won't" Aleera answered "If we can discover something about these werewolves, it would be useful to the Master as well."  
Anna lowered her gun a little more, thinking. From what she had read about the count, he was an honorable man when he was alive, so she could "safely" believe that he would have respected the deal they had made. But then there was the fact that he had sent one of his brides to keep an eye on her. Yes, because she hadn't believed for an instant that he had sent Aleera there out of gratefulness, nor because he really thought that she was vital for her people's survival. No, those were valid reasons, but there had to be something more behind his actions, and she needed to find that out. Not right then, though. She was tired, still hungry, and very tense, obviously. Aleera, on the other hand, seemed perfectly fine and well rested. If the vampire had wanted to harm or kill her, she would have done it already as there were no reasons for her to wait. So for whatever motive she was going with her, keeping an eye on her or just honoring their deal to keep her alive to help keeping the villagers alive, Anna wasn't going to sent her away or kill her. Yes, because she knew that gun she was holding couldn't stop her, but the silver stake she had in her cloak's pocket definitely could. The vampire hadn't seen it yet, and the princess didn't want her to, or she wouldn't have had the surprise by her side in case things got dangerous with the bride. So she would have kept the stake hidden and ready to be used, but nothing more. After all, she didn't want to break the truce, not then at least, it wouldn't have been of any use to herself or her people. No, she would have accomplished her mission first, and if the vampire wanted to help her doing it, very well, she could use that.  
Decision taken, she put the gun away and extended her hand "Alright then, we'll accomplish this mission together. Allies?"  
Aleera studied her expression and then hand for a few moments, surprised by her fast acceptance of the situation and by her gesture. Finally, when Anna moved her hand slightly forward, the vampire grabbed it with hers answering "Allies."  
The princess ignored the cold temperature of the bride as well as the little smile on her face and said "Just to be clear, I still don't trust you."  
Aleera chuckled "I haven't expected otherwise" then, looking down at their hands "What now?"  
Anna let her go and came back to the fire "Now I'm going to finish my dinner and ask you a few more questions."  
She sat down and the vampire did the same, much more graciously though "Fine by me."  
Anna took a bite at her sandwich, then asked "You said Dracula and Verona couldn't stay to help my people. I take it that they left?" The vampire nodded and the princess continued "Where did they go?"  
Aleera studied her for a few moments, clearly pondering about telling her or not. Finally, she decided that she would have found it out eventually, and answered "They went to gather our servants to fight the werewolves. You said at least twenty beasts attacked your village; with our reinforces we'll outnumber them."  
Anna slightly frowned, worried "Won't all those vampires feed on my people and slaughter them same as the werewolves?" She didn't trust the vampires she knew, she surely woldn't have trusted those she didn't knew.  
But Aleera shook her head "No, they won't, unless the Master tells them to. They are all our servants, and we are all HIS servants. We all will respect the truce because he said so. No one will disobey him and attack your people, don't worry."  
Anna lifted an eyebrow "How do you know it for sure? How do you know they won't betray him?"  
The bride looked at her as if she said something very stupid "They just can't. And why would they? The Master had gifted them with a new life."  
"What if they want to rebel against him?" Seeing the vampire looking at her even worse than before, she added "Just consider it possible for a moment!"  
"But it's not!" Aleera seemed frustrated that the princess didn't get such a simple fact "The Master had made them, he had made us all. They can't harm him, as they can't harm me and Verona, because we are his brides. They serve us. So if the Master give them an order, they respect it. Stop worrying about what would happen to your people if our servants disobey us, because that can't happen. It's not how it works."  
She seemed to understand by Anna's still uncertain gaze that she hadn't fully understood what she had just told her, so she added, sighing "It's a vampire thing."  
The princess didn't comment any further on it, and instead took another bite. Then she asked "How long will it take Dracula and Verona to gather all those vampires?"  
"Surely a few days" Aleera answered, with a thoughtful expression "Since we don't know the exact number of our enemies, I think the Master will summon at least three quarters of our servants, if not them all. That way we'll know for certain we'll defeat them."  
"So we have just a few days to find out what we can and come back" Anna commented, then asked "How will we do this? You can't travel in the daylight, and I can't follow traces in the dark. Furthermore, if we only travel during the night we'll lose far more precious time than travelling during the day" the princess sighed, frustrated, then continued "I'll have to travel during the day, and you'll reach me as soon as the sun goes down." Aleera opened her mouth to protest, but Anna didn't let her "It's the best way, and also the only one possible." After all, Anna was human, and the vampire was a creature of the night, of course that would have been in the way of their collaboration, which was all but natural.  
Aleera didn't seem happy at all as she objected "What if something happens during the day and I'm not there to protect you?"  
Anna snorted "I don't need your protection, at least not during the day. In case you haven't noticed I can take care of myself" she threw a pointed look at the dead wolf not far from them.  
The vampire curled her lips up, showing her perfect human teeth "Yes, I've noticed a woman fighting alone and winning against a few, exhausted wolves. And I was impressed by you bravery, really, but as you told me in this forest there are far more dangerous things than wild, hungry animals. And they won't be defeated so easely, Anna."  
"They won't come out of their den during the day" the princess talked back "The only case known of such a behaviour from them regards the werewolves under your controll. They came after us, after my family even during the day just because Dracula has ordered them to, and they must obey; otherwise they wouldn't have. Everyone knows that the werewolves are creature of the night, same as your kind." She couldn't hold back the disdain for both species as she talked, and the vampire noticed, if her half-closing eyes were anything to go by.  
"You do have a point. But if you are wrong" Aleera started with a slow tone "If they attack you when we don't expect them to, I won't be there to help you. You'll die."  
Anna swallowed, knowing she was saying the truth "It's a risk I'm willing to accept. We can't afford to lose time. Every day we'd lose would be one more night of my people risking their lifes."  
The vampire rolled her eyes in exasperation, knowing that with that point for the princess the matter was closed. It was such a human gesture that it surprised Anna, who looked at her with wide eyes for a moment before catching herself.  
"Fine" the bride resigned herself "but do try not to get yourself killed."  
Anna looked at her, strangely touched by her statement, and the little emotion she felt at that convinced her that she had had enough interactions with the redhead vampire for one day. She still had some questions for the bride, but they could wait.  
Her dinner finished, she stood up and quickly prepared her camp bed, placing it near the fire, then she turned to the vampire "I'm going to take a much needed long night rest now. Just to warn you, I use to sleep armed, so think twice before trying anything or waking me up suddendly."  
Aleera chuckled and answered "Don't worry, princess. As I have already told you, you are safe from me for as long as our truce is standing. I'll try to not wake you up suddendly though, if not for an emergency of course." She stood up "I'll be on guard."  
Faster than a blink of an eye, the vampire jumped and made herself comfortable on a branch of the tree that towered over the princess, somehow succeeding in doing it all very graciously.  
Anna laid down, a hand around her silver stake in her cloak's pocket, and spent several minutes thinking back at all the recent events happened with the vampires, and in particular at her little chat with Aleera near the campfire. Even if the princess had asked her only the questions useful for the mission, it had felt a situation too normal and mundane to Anna's tastes. The princess sighed and turned in her camp bed until finally she relaxed and started to give up to the tiredness.  
She was already falling asleep when she heard the soft voice of the vampire wishing her a good night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So what do you think? I hope the wolves' scene was believable, I originally thought about it with Aleera saving Anna from them, but then I decided Anna could handle a pack of exhausted and hungry animals herself. She is a trained gipsy princess who fights vampires and werewolves on daily bases, after all. Anyway, I hope you like how it turned out.  
> I'll start writing the next chapter tomorrow, and we'll see some other little chats between Anna and Aleera as their journey continues.  
> Let me know what you think!


	4. The journey

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! I've recently read a theory which said that Aleera was part of Anna's crew before becoming one of Dracula's brides; I don't know if it's true, but the cast didn't say anything like that in the interviews, so I don't consider it official. It is an interesting theory though, which would explain why Anna seemed to have a more personal relationship with Aleera than with the other brides. Personally, I've always thought that was because Aleera was for some reason ( ;) ) more obsessed with Anna than Marishka and Verona, so that's my starting point for this story.  
> Just saying, anyway, enjoy!

Anna stirred when she heard a soft, familiar voice calling her name at first calmly, sweetly, as if to make her return to reality less sudden, then more insistently again ad again. The princess sensed the growing urgency in the tone, and that took her suddendly back to consciousness. She sat up almost violently when the first memories of the last few days came back at her.  
She looked around, hand on her hidden silver stake, and found Aleera crouched next to her camp bed, but not near enough to be hit if the princess' awakening would had been more agitated.  
Not seeing any sign of trouble, Anna asked "What is it?"  
The vampire stood up and answered "Nothing, I just want you to be full awake and watchful before I leave."  
Anna, still confused by the last remainings of her sleep, slightly tilted her head "Where are you going?"  
"I'm going to look for a safe place to spend the day in. The dawn isn't far" the vampire added, looking at the growing clearer sky with slight worry. Then she took her eyes back to the princess "I'd let you sleep more, but I need to find a covered place as soon as possible."  
Anna nodded, appreciating the thoughtfulness of the vampire to wake her up before leaving. She tought for a moment, then, when she saw the bride turning her back to her to go, said "There are mountains not too far from here. Maybe you could see if you find a cavern there somewhere."  
The vampire turned back to her, surprised by her helpful suggestion, and answered "Well, it's worth a try. Thank you princess."  
Anna nodded, and Aleera hesitated another moment, looking up at the sky again, then asked "Do try and not get yourself in danger, again, or killed on your second day, will you?"  
Even if said with the still lingering annoiance at the princess' decision of travelling during the day without her, Anna couldn't help but being strangely touched for the second time in as much days by words. Still, she rolled her eyes, but when she noticed the nervous energy that run down the bride's body at the approaching dawn, she quickly answered "I will, just because you asked so kindly" then, after a beat "I'm sure you'll find a place creepy enough for you to wait the night there. Do try not to scare away all the nearby animals though, I'd like to have fresh meat for lunch one of this days."  
Aleera chuckled and asnwered "I'll try my best. See you later, Anna."  
A last glance over her shoulder, a smirk and she was reaching for the sky, following the retreating darkness.

Anna sighed and grabbed another sandwich for breakfast.  
A glance at the fire and she noticed it was starting to extinguish itself only then at the dawn, which was weird, since she hadn't taken care of it during the night. Suddendly, the strange, comforting image of a certain redhead vampire alimenting it while she was sleeping came up in her mind. She pushed it aside though, considering it a stupid theory: why would Aleera do that? It wasn't like she cared for her health, just for her life if she had understood correctly Dracula's orders, which she did. She didn't understand his motives though, and that worried her, but it was useless to reflect on questions that couldn't be answered, not by herself at least. And she didn't know if Aleera knew them, or if she would tell her at all; probably not, considering those were his master's business.  
Anna quickly and expertly packed her thinghs, prepared her horse and come back to where she had left the track. Once there, she mounted and started following the traces again. Firstly it was easy, but then the sky became cloudy and dark, and the princess pushed her horse at a faster rhythm, afraid that the rain, if it came, would have made her task more difficult considering that they were still in a part not so thick of the forest, where the trees' crowns couldn't protect the ground.  
She kept her focus on the traces, but her eyes went from the track, to the nearby trees, to the sky without resting. Her weapons were ready to be used and her mount was well rested, as was she, but Anna remained on alert, not trusting the silence of the forest. She didn't understand. When she was younger and only in very rare occasions, when it was safer, her father had brought her brother and her into the forest for some training, and she remember very well the first thing he had taught her: beyond the first trees it was like a new world, separated from theirs, where everything was alive and noisy. If there were no noises, her father had told her, it meant something was wrong. And in that moment, Anna couldn't hear anything but her horse's breaths and fast steps on the ground. The princess exhaled as she studied the nearby trees better. There were no signs of a threat, and the traces she was following were rather fresh, which meant that maybe the forest's animals wanted to stay away from that zone, knowing what kind of beasts has crossed it. And the trees weren't so thick yet, so most of the animals probably lived deeper in the forest.  
Those were good theories, but Anna still kept eyes and ears well opened. Then she heard it: the costant and familiar sound of the beat of mighty wings. She lifted her gaze toward the sky, and there, over the trees' crowns she saw the well known bat form of the redhead vampire flying in circle above her.  
The princess sighed and moved her gaze back on the traces, relaxing herself. That one on the sky was another good reason of why the animals were keeping themselves away from there. Even if it slightly annoyed her to see that apparently the vampire didn't consider her capable of staying alive and manage herself without supervision, that allowed her to bring most of her focus back on following the traces and not worrying about possible treaths. It was kind of ironic to know that she had a demonic guardian literally up there watching over her, and also weird, but kind of reassuring as well, considering it allowed her to enjoy more the ride.  
Anna kept a fast rhythm for a few hours, then decided to dismount and lead the horse by foot, to make it rest a little bit. After all, she could count on the vampire protection only if the sky remained cloudy, then she would be on her own again, and she wanted her horse to be as rested as possible in case that happened.  
As soon as her feet touched the ground, she heard the beat of wings to hesitate, intensify, and then nothing.  
Anna lifted her gaze, surprised, and her horse almost reared up, scared. She quickly pulled the reins and murmured calming words in a soothing voice, then she turned to see what caused that reaction and nearly jumped out of her skin when she found herself face to face with the redhead vampire.  
Aleera lowered her eyes to her chest, where Anna's heart would usually be if it hadn't climbed up to her throat just a second before, then back to meet the princess' ones and asked innocently "Did I scare you?"  
Anna took a deep breath, then glared "The horse, actually."  
The vampire laughed wholeheartedly, and the princess stared, surprised. She had never heard a laughter so genuine and free of evilness coming from her. It was a nice change surely, and a nice sound as well.  
"I must say I'm impressed by your dedication in protecting me" Anna affirmed sarcastically, and started walking, eyes on the traces again "Isn't it a bit risky for you to be out in the open during the day?"  
"It is, and I'm flattered by your worry for me, Anna" the vampire said, smiling teasingly, but continued before the princess could reply "But it's not necessary with this weather. And I found a safe place for me not far from here. I'd manage to take refuge there if things get too bright, which they won't, I think, until after midday at least. And I told you I would have seen you later."  
Anna nodded "If you say so" and then asked "Why did you come down here?"  
"Because you dismounted. If it was boring to fly in circle above you when you were riding, and it was, I assure you, imagine how it would have been to do so while you were just walking. Don't worry though princess" she added, looking around "I can still perceive a threat approaching from here. And wild animals won't bother us."  
Anna furrowed her eyebrows "And why is that?"  
"Because they know you are escorted by the most dangerous creature of all" the vampire smiled, showing her perfect human teeth, and for a moment her eyes flashed purple.  
The princess huffed, already used to the redhead's showoffs, and commented "They certainly sense something very wrong here."  
Aleera lightly chuckled, then moved her curious eyes on the princess and asked "How do you know how to move in the forest, follow traces and make a camp, princess?"  
Anna gave her a look like "Seriously? Small talk?" But why not? They were stuck together anyway, so why didn't make that situation more bearable? She didn't have to open up or trust the vampire, just make conversation. And if she was subtle enough, she could even obtain some useful information from her very enemy. All she had to do was keeping a not tense, light, almost friendly atmosphere. She could do that for a little, or she could at least try.  
So she shrugged and answered "My father taught both me and my brother when we were younger. Even a child without training could follow these though" she added, looking back at the traces "There are so many of them that the ground will be in this poor conditions for a while, and they didn't even try to hide themselves. They just run violently back to their den, or whatever they call it. They all went back there, as all the traces point in one direction."  
Aleera slightly hissed between her gritted teeth, and the horse whinnied, nervous "That place will be their grave" she stated with a very cold voice, a strong contrast with the flames clearly visible in her suddendly purple eyes.  
The princess caressed her mount's nose, calming it, and looked at the vampire "You seem very eager to slaughter them" she observed "Even more so than usual. Why is that? Why is Dracula personally moving to prepare the battle?"  
"But why, Anna, you said it yourself" Aleera answered with her best soft, lethal tone, moving her inhuman eyes on her "This IS OUR territory, and we WILL fight for it" she affirmed with such a ferocity that for one tiniest second Anna felt bad for the newcomer beasts "Especially since the Master has stated that no other werewolf will be tolerated here if not our owns. And they are not our owns, even if we don't know how this could be possible. The Master has had the controll of every werewolf bitten and turned here from centuries. It had always been that way."  
"Van H…" Anna coffed, stopping herself from talking about the monster hunter, knowing that it was a triggering subject "That's exactly why I think they are a wandering pack that came here from outside to establish here. Think about it: here the population is poor, the life is already made difficult by monsters from centuries, and there are big forests, like this one, where a pack of werewolves can hide and live without troubles.."  
"Until now." The vampire interrupped her speech "Your logic isn't wrong, but it doesn't matter anyway. These beasts will be no more when the Master and Verona will come back with our servants."  
Anna nodded absently minded, trying to decide which question she should ask first about that topic.  
"Why did Dracula choose you to come with me instead of Verona?" The princess decided finally.  
Aleera turned her head to look at her so quickly and violently that Anna knew for sure if she was human she would have grimaced for the pain. That of course didn't happen, but the vampire looked at her with a surprised and almost hurt expression "Why, my love, you would have preferred her to escort you rather than me? You hurt my feelings" The vampire's voice was mocking her, but her eyes were serious, as if she was actually interested in her answer.  
Anna thought for a moment that she sounded almost jealous, but then she scoffed and rolled her eyes, both at the redhead and at herself for the absurdity of that thought, then answered "I didn't mean it that way" it was true, she would have rather gone alone in her mission, she would never have thought to be escorted by a vampire, and continued "It's just that Verona doesn't seem so obsessed in killing me as you do, and she's never been playful and sadistic with me either, on the contrary of someone else" she gave the redhead vampire a pointed look "And she is way more serious than you are. So from my perspective it made far more sense that Dracula would have sent her to escort me."  
"You keep hurting my feelings, my love, I thought we were having so much fun together" Aleera's eyes shone teasingly, then she chuckled "That's true though, she is no fun, unlike me and our poor Marishka, who I'll miss dearly. She liked to play with our preys even more than me" a shadow of sorrow darkened her regal features, but it was gone as quickly as it arrived as she continued "That's why the Master had chosen her to go with him. He knows both of us very well and guessed, correctly, that I'd have way more fun on this task than the other, even if I miss him terribly. But at least I have you to distract me" she smiled maliciously at Anna, who adverted her eyes and turned her face to hide the slight blush on her cheeks at her teasing words "Verona, on the other hand, couldn't care less to escort you anywhere, and is far more happy to be always at the Master's side. Furthermore, that, as well as being there to order our servants around with him, are very important tasks of hers."  
"How come?" Anna asked, in spite of herself curious about their dynamics.  
"She is the first bride of the Master, his first mate" the vampire answered as if it was obvious.  
The princess' eyebrows lifted in surprise "I didn't know that. So that's why she can give you orders? And you have to obey them?"  
Aleera shrugged, another gesture so human that surprised Anna, and answered "Yes. She is the eldest bride, and if she gives me an order, I obey. Of course she must obey the Master's orders as well."  
"That's why you didn't protest when she claimed the first bite on me for herself" the princess murmured to herself, not really thinking about the fact that the redhead could hear her very well.  
"Yes, that's right. I'm really happy she didn't get it though" the vampire answered, with a sinister smile "I really want the first bite on you to be mine." Her predatory eyes pierced her with such an intensity that Anna swallowed, not daring to ask her why she desired that.  
Instead, she went for a cold "You wish" and brought her eyes back on the traces. That argument brought her back to the present, and she remebered exactly who they were to each other, mortal enemies. That made Anna tense her posture and bring her walls back up. She almost regretted it though; it was nice to just chat calmly during their time together instead of fighting and treathning each others. Obviously their talk hadn't been a travel away from their reality, but the fundamental different thing had been the atmosphere between them. It had always been full of tension and danger, but those past few moments it had been calm, relaxed, almost friendly, and that had been a nice change. It couldn't last though, Anna knew it well; once their mission was accomplished and the werewolves defeated they would have been back to be mortal enemies, and that was a fact that couldn't be changed.  
Aleera seemed to sense her change of mood, because she gave her a brief look, then scanned the forest, before asking "How about a fresh meal today?"  
Anna blinked, taken aback by her question, and asked "What do you mean?"  
"Would you like to eat a rabbit freshly hunted?" The princess' eyes probably shone, because the redhead smiled and continued "Can you cook it?"  
At that, Anna snorted "Of course I can cook a rabbit! I'm not some stupid spoiled princess, I'm a gipsy, I'm not afraid of making my hands dirty."  
Aleera chuckled, giving her a very dark, heated look "I haven't doubt that for a second, princess. See you in a few minutes then."  
Before Anna could even start to protest, or say that it wasn't necessary for her to do that, the vampire was already into the sky, flying towards her prey, so the princess saved her breath for a sigh, tied her horse and started making a camp fire. They had to do a break anyway.  
A few minutes later, as promised, Aleera landed and handed her a dead rabbit with a pleased smile, and Anna quickly cleaned and started cooking it.  
The vampire didn't perch on a tree to be on guard as the princess had expected; instead, she sat down graciously and observed quietly the gipsy preparing her meal. Hers wasn't a creepy staring in a tense, uncomfortable silence, on the contrary the redhead seemed just curious to see Anna working on the rabbit, and the atmosphere remained peaceful. Never in her life the princess could have imagined to find herself in such a domestic situation with the vampire someday. It wasn't so bad.  
When the rabbit was finally ready, she took a portion and bite it, closing her eyes and letting herself enjoy and moan at the taste of a freshly cooked meal, and didn't notice the hungry look that the vampire gave her in hearing the delicious sound.  
She did hear her chuckle though, as well as her question "I take it that it's good?"  
The princess slightly blushed, but opened her eyes to meet hers and answered "That's an understatement."  
The redhead lifted a perfect shaped eyebrow "Modest, are we?"  
Then it was Anna's turn to chuckle "I am a good cook, and I know it, no need to be modest with myself."  
"Well, it does smell good" Aleera admitted.  
The princess lifted both her eyebrows and said "I thought you didn't need to breathe."  
"I don't, in fact, but I can if I want to" the vampire explained "And for this mission it will be helpful if I can smell the werewolves too, instead of only hearing them approaching."  
"Good point" Anna conceded, then after a brief pause, she added "Thank you for the rabbit, you didn't have to."  
To her surprise, Aleera simply dismissed her words with a gesture of her hand, saying "It's nothing, I liked to feel again the delicious sensations of the hunt, even if the prey was just a small, scared rabbit."  
"How did you find it in such a brief time?" Anna asked, her curiosity about the vampires' world flaring up again.  
The redhead chuckled "Oh, it wasn't hard. It saw us and run away, and its little heart beated like a drum. It was like an invitation for me."  
The princess nodded in understanding, while eating her portion, and savouring it calmly. She then noticed the intense gaze of the vampire on herself, and, thinking she was looking at her meal, asked out of curiosity "Don't you miss the taste of the food?"  
Aleera blinked a few times, taken aback by the question, and her hazel eyes moved on the meat for a while, then she answered "No, I don't" and seeing the look Anna gave her, she elaborated "I remember it, thanks to the smell too, but I don't miss it. Since I don't need it to survive and I can't feed on it anymore, the food has lost all his allure on me from centuries by now. From the very first time I tasted the blood, actually." The redhead concluded her answer there, knowing that if she went on talking about how absolutely delicious and incomparable to human food the blood was, she could have upset the princess.  
And she was right, because Anna frowned and her mood darkened as her words brought to her mind several images of the vampires feeding on her people. That made her tense, but she forced herself to hold back her rage and not ruin the peaceful atmosphere, which only God knew how much she needed it in that crazy and dangerous mission of hers. So she took a deep breath to calm herself and pushed back all the new questions she had for the vampire about that argument, knowing she couldn't hear the answers without snapping. Not right then, at least.  
At the end, she went for a simple but polite "Since you would refuse then, I won't offer you a taste."  
Aleera's eyes shone, and a mischievous smile appeared on her face as she answered "That is the only thing I would refuse a taste of, from you." There was no mistaking the second meaning in her words, if her heated, intense gaze was anything to go by.  
Anna swallowed forcibly the meat, miraculously succeeding in not choking on it, and looked at her in panic, words failing her.  
Apparently it was the sun who saved her, because Aleera suddendly looked up to the sky and gritted her teeth: a soft wind was starting to move the clouds.  
The vampire stood up hastily and said "I have to go back to the cavern" with an urgency which convinced Anna that the previous, heavy moment was the farthest thing from the redhead's mind right then.  
Of course, she didn't have such luck, because before flying away, Aleera stopped to say, looking at her straight in the eyes "There are no treaths nearby, so please stay a little longer to enjoy your meal, and in particular its taste."  
Then the vampire launched herself into the sky with a loud, amused laughter that rang out into the forest even when she had disappeared from the view.  
The princess blushed furiously and sighed, annoyed at the vampire's teasing and at her own body's reactions to it.

Anna finished her meal calmly, then mounted on her horse and started following the werewolves' traces again. The sun shone into the sky for the rest of the day, allowing her to go fast, and it kept both the real demons and the mind's ones away from Anna, giving her a much needed time of peace. The princess paid attention both to the path and to the nearby trees, but also let herself enjoy the ride.  
She found her thoughts to keep going back to the last hours just spent with Aleera, and at first she allowed them, guessing she was still surprised about the calm and almost friendly atmosphere they created. But when she caught herself almost missing the presence of the night's creature, she stopped the horse, astonished and angry at herself. She coulnd't miss her, not because of an uneventful ride, not ever. Aleera was one of the mortal enemies of hers. Nothing could change that, and if she started to enjoy or miss her presence, well, that would have been a big, unnecessary problem. And she already had too many of them.  
So, determined in not letting the redhead to get under her skin, she forced everything reguarding vampire out of her mind, and kept herself focused on her current task. The princess pushed her horse to a faster rythm, and for the rest of the day she tried and only sometimes succeeded in keeping the redhead out of her mind.  
When the sun finally started to go down, she stopped and tied the horse and quickly made the camp. Both mentally and phisically exhausted, Anna ate just a few bites of the remainig rabbit's meat, and sat down on her camp bed, gun in hand and on alert. Even if she really didn't want to face her in that moment, the princess had to wait for the vampire before going to sleep.  
Aleera didn't make her wait for long. As soon as the sun disappeared behind the mountains, in fact, the vampire arrived and graciously landed near the camp fire. She turned back into her human form and asked "Going to sleep already?"  
"Well, I have spent my day riding as fast as I could in a forest; not exactly an easy task, so" Anna answered, avoiding her eyes and making herself comfortable in her camp bed, then concluded "if you don't mind."  
The princess didn't wait Aleera's answer, instead she laid down and closed her eyes, effectively closing the conversation as well and totally missing the redhead's confused and a bit hurted expression.  
The vampire didn't answer, but kept her gaze firmly on Anna, as if she could find the motive of her suddendly cold and detached behaviour on her laying form. Failing at it, Aleera decided to attribute it at the exhaustion, and let it go. Still, she didn't move her eyes from the princess, and when she finally heard her heart and breathing slowing to a more steady rhythm, and saw her whole body relaxing, she softly murmured her a good night.  
Only after hearing an unaware, pleased sigh answering her, the redhead vampire stood up and perched on a tree, ready to be on guard another night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am really try to keep these characters as much similar to those of the movies as I can, please tell me if you think I'm not. Anyway, I hope you liked this chapter, let me know what you think!


	5. Bloodthirst

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, sorry for the wait, I hope you like the chapter!

Aleera's senses stood on alert all night, reaching as far into the forest around them as they could, allowing her to effectively prevent any unpleasant surprise, but her mind was somewhere else entirely. Her thoughts followed her unmoving gaze toward one direction and one direction only: the gipsy princess.  
For one, she was the only human the vampire's supernatural senses could perceive in the forest around them. And it didn't help that her bloodthirst was increasing each passing day. Anna's steady heartbeat was very loud in the brief distance that separated them, and even if the redhead could hear every single little noise around them, no matter how distant or small, none of them was as alluring as the asleep woman's organ pumping life through her body. Aleera tried very hard not to lick her lips at the thought of Anna's blood, which she had craved for so long that the knowledge that probably it wouldn't be herself the first vampire to bite the princess phisically hurted her. And seeing the woman lying down under the tree she was perched on, sleeping and trusting her for protection, well, it all put her self controll under great effort. It was very hard for the redhead to just sit there on guard, while all she wanted to do was jump down and and taste the blood that had been singing for her from the very first time she had laid her eyes on the princess, moreover considering that she wasn't used on holding herself back from something she wanted.  
Those were her vampire instincts, that she couldn't change nor eliminate, because fundamental part of her very nature, which she completely accepted. Those thoughts she didn't consider wrong, but still had to fight them, for the sake of the mission and for her Master's orders. She could hold her bloodthirst in check for him.  
So that was a secondary problem. The main problem there was that her desire for the princess' blood, a very obsession of hers, wasn't the only nor the first reason for which the vampire's thoughts kept drifting back to the woman.  
In fact, Aleera had found herself thinking very often about the new last moments she had spent with the human while being away from her, hanging in the cavern where she was spending her days. At first, after explaining the reasons of her presence there, the redhead had been her usual flirty, playful self, teasing the princess and pushing her buttons. She didn't question it, she didn't need to, as she had always behaved that way with her and quite liked it. So why changing her behaviour when it never failed to bring her so much fun? But then, in the peace of the night, seeing again those scenes in her mind, she became aware of a slow but felt change in their dynamic. In fact, she saw the atmosphere between them passing from tense and dangerous to almost friendly and relaxed in…what, a couple of days? Maybe just one? Not that the vampire disliked it, she still got her little moments where she could make the princess uncomfortable or embarassed with her not so subtle double meanings, but it was more than that. She had talked to Anna in ways she never had before: calmly, seriously, patiently,…humanly even, as if they were just two friends chatting during a walk in the village. And hunting for her had been a bit excessive, and she still couldn't explain to herself why she did that. She would have done that to cheer her up, if they were firends. But they were not, they could never be. Whatever they had or were developing there would have been just as temporary as their mission was. After it, Anna would have come back fighting her and searching for a way to kill her Master. Even if, well, screw that, when Dracula's plan for the princess would have succeeded, they probably still wouldn't be friends. She didn't have that kind of relationship with Verona, and she had never had it with Marishka as well. The briders were lovers, family, mates and many other things to each others, but not friends. They were something more and something less, depending on what aspect of their role was the one in consideration, but never on the same exact level a friend would be for another. And it all worked perfectly, they were happy that way. But Aleera didn't quite see Anna fitting in their family, submitting herself to Dracula and obeying him and Verona's orders. Well, to be honest, should the redhead give her one, the princess would have to obey hers as well, since she would be the youngest, and the last addition to their family after so many years. The thought of Anna submitting to her will, as well as the one where the redhead took her under her wing and teach her new things, such as how to pleasure their Master and the other brides, well…it made a different kind of thirst to raise in Aleera, one she found even harder to fight and hold back. She had to, though, at least until her Master's plan succeeded.  
Aleera wasn't a patient woman, at all, but she could be for her Lord. There, another problem was the fact that she didn't want to hold back her thirsts exclusevly for her Master's orders, but for Anna's trust in the redhead as well. She found herself unable and unwilling to break it at least for the rest of their time together. And that was something she really didn't want to investigate. Not when the princess occupied so many thoughts of hers already, and when her company and their chats in that new, relaxed atmosphere they had recently created were so enjoyable. Too much, actually. Aleera had to be more careful in what she revealed to Anna while answering her questions. Even if she liked the reluctant curiosity she saw in her eyes, she couldn't tell her their kind's secrets. Harmless things such as hierarchy she could, but something like her Master's actual reasons about her presence there, or his plan for the princess? Those she didn't think she should tell her. Well, thinking about it, her Lord didn't say her not to, he didn't express himself at all about it, but it's not like it could have made any difference, could it? Anna wouldn't agree regardless. Aleera was surprised by the sudden sadness she felt at that thought. She immediately pushed it down though; it was unnecessary, since the princess had no choice in that, no say in what she wanted, and Aleera shouldn't care about it either. Her Master had a plan, a wish, and his wishes were her orders, so she would have done everything in her power to grant it.  
Those thoughts, as well as the memories of her Lord and her recent chats with Anna kept her company the whole night, which she didn't mind. What she did mind was her growing bloodthirst, that became more annoying and urgent every passing moment.  
The vampire looked at the sky: as the day before, many clouds were still forming into it. That was a victory as much as a doom for the redhead, because that meant she could stay in the open to protect the princess, but being nearby her would have just teased her thirst more than it was already doing. And it would have been even worse with the progressing of the day. No. She had to stay as far away as she could from the princess but still in her senses' range of perception to protect her. That until the clouds allowed her, of course. Yes, she could do that, she just needed to be more strong willed and less emotional driven until she found someone else to feed on. Nodding to herself, Aleera took a deep breath as to prepare herself for said task, but suddendly she figured out how terrible that idea had actually been. The various scents of the forest hit her nostrils hard, trees, animals, earth, but, above all of them, Anna's rich scent was the one that hit her harder. Her skin, her hair and her blood all danced into her mind begging her to take a closer look at the sleeping human and then a taste, followed by many, many others. Aleera clenched her jaw with an harsh noise and turned her head, stopping breathing altogether. It was annoying, as well as dangerous, since the sense of smell was very useful to anticipate a werewolves' eventual attack, but she had no choice, and she could still hear them approaching from a great distance, so.  
She left Anna sleep more than before, since it was cloudy enough for her to stay on guard longer that the previous days. It was the change of the light that woke her up that morning, instead of the vampire.  
The princess stirred, opened her eyes then sat up suddendly. She looked around, and when she saw the redhead still perched on a tree, she relaxed her shoulders and asked "Why didn't you wake me earlier?"  
Aleera shrugged and answered "It's enough cloudy for me to stay around even after the dawn, I thought you would appreciate some more sleep."  
She saw Anna hesitating, as if she was undecided between being annoyed about losing valuable time and being grateful for the much needed longer rest. At the end, the princess shrugged as well and stood up to grab her breakfast.  
Seeing the woman drank her water eagerly made Aleera to slowly massage her aching, dry throat in envy. If only she could drink some water to make the growing burn in it to lessen a little, in this occasion she would, since it only made her task harder. But she couldn't, so instead she said "I'm going to go flying around the area, strecthing my limbs a little."  
She graciously walked till the end of the branch, ready to jump into the sky when Anna asked "You could do that just walking by my side as you did yesterday, since the light is still insufficient for me to see clearly the traces by the back of my horse?"  
Aleera ignored the pleased feeling she felt at the fact that the princess had answered that, instead of the "whatever" she had expected, and answered, looking straight into her eyes "My my, Anna, I didn't think I would grow that much on you that you would miss my presence for a day, even less a few hours" she smiled teasingly, then continued when she saw the princess opening her mouth to talk back "Don't worry princess, I won't let you out of my sight, nor out of my hearing range. I'll just fly around, since I miss it. And if the sun allowes it, I'll see you later." Then she jumped into the cloudy sky, disappearing in a few moments.

It turned out the sun didn't allow her to return "later", whenever the redhead meant by that.  
In fact, Anna had travelled alone all morning, puzzled because even with those many clouds into the sky, the vampire had never landed nor flew above of near her for the rest of the following dark hours. And then, around midday, the sun had come out from the clouds and shone brightly for the major part of the afternoon.  
Now, it wasn't like Anna didn't appreciate the quiet, but she just didn't understand that sudden desire of the redhead to fly around instead of near her, moreover since all the vampire seemed to want to do was teasing her and imposing her presence to her. And that sudden change of heart, as well as her absence, had the only effect to make Anna think about Aleera more than she liked to admit. The princess found herself bored and craving for the vampire's company in farely more than one occasion in those few hours of solitude, and she didn't like it either. Anna had always been a strong willed woman, who given a task would be focussed on it until it was completed, no matter how long would it take her. And now she found her mind wandering back to the redhead in the middle of a mission to save her people. The same people she had tried to protect from that very redhead and her kind her entire life. That didn't make any sense. And yet, as always with all the forbidden and confusing things people shouldn't even think about, Anna found herself thinking about it and about the teasing vampire for the entire time of her absence.  
Needless to say, she didn't cover too much ground, and at the end, frustrated, she stopped her horse and decided to take a break in a group of closer trees quite near to a river, hoping to refresh herself and get rid of those thoughts. She should have imagined it wouldn't have worked when the very source of those thoughts landed just outside the circle of trees.  
She was relieved to see her though, and not only because her presence kept the animals away from the area, so she turned toward her with a little smile on her face. Then time seemed to slow down.  
While Aleera entered the group of trees, a soft wind started blowing, and it carried Anna's smell to the vampire, hitting her suddendly and all at once and inflaming her thirst. The redhead froze, and her eyes changed into that strange icy purple that characterised her. She slightly disclosed her mouth, and Anna noticed her canines were longer than normal. The princess stepped back and put an hand on the handle of her sword, more a reflex than anything else, surprised.  
The vampire, knowing better than to step forward, turned around and grabbed the trunk of a tree with both her hands, trying to hold herself back from doing something she would have regretted later.  
Anna heard the wood wail and the bark creak under the pression of her strong fingers. She didn't understand what was going on. In those last few days spent together Aleera, despite usually being a show off, had only made her canines grew when she had to fly and her body had had an almost total transformation. And she had never behaved that way, so why then? The princess took a tentative step forwards and asked "Aleera? Is everything alright?"  
The redhead ignored the pleased feeling at hearing Anna calling her by her name, since it wasn't the right moment to savour it, and asked in turn, tightening her grip on the trunk "Is there any human settlements nearby? Anything at all?" She already knew the answer, but she needed to be absolutely sure about it.  
Anna noticed right away the urgency and the lethal seriousness in her voice, and they surprised her, since in all those years she had never heard her speak that way, so she immediately focused on the question "No, there are no human settlements nearby that I know of, why?" She took another step closer to the vampire.  
"I need blood" Aleera harshly answered, keeping her gaze straight to the wood in front of herself. The redhead didn't know if turning and looking at the princess would have made it as worse as she guessed it would, but she had no intention of risking it, since her approaching heart beat was enough of a temptation.  
Then Anna understood. And she remembered as clearly as if it had happened just the day before that when she and Verona had come to the village to avenge Marishka on Van Helsing and Carl and the princess had told them about the werewolves, the vampires had come back to Dracula dry mouthed. Literally. Verona had told the other bride that they could wait, and that informing their Master about the news was more important than their thrist. It had been a few days from then, but Aleera hadn't feed herself then, or before that, as she hadn't in those days, they had only travelled. The princess studied the redhead carefully. The skin of her face was paler than usual, light eye bags were appearing on it, making her look tired and tense, and she seemed to be making a great effort to stay nailed to that tree and not jump on her. She didn't even glance in her direction, but she sure as hell could hear her heart and her blood, if her pailing knuckles were anything to go by.  
Anna didn't know for how long Aleera was holding back her bloodthirst with her, but a sudden memory of the vampire massaging her own throat that morning made her think that maybe it just got worse, and that the wind blowing her scent on the hungry redhead had been what had finally made her thirst to snap.  
"Maybe you could go back to…feed yourself" she suggested, even if doing it, as well as the thought of it, made her sick.  
"I can't, the truce and the Master's orders forbid me to. Furthermore, I can't leave you alone that long, especially not this late in the day, with the night approaching" Aleera answered through her clenched jaw, trying hard to stay nailed there, and to think about something else to force herself to turn back into completely human and push down her thrist.  
Anna, as always surprised and touched by her worry for her safety, if that was actually it, asked "And what about the animals? Can't you feed on them?"  
Aleera laughed out loud even in that critical moment, as if that was the most ridiculous thing she had ever heard in her long life "We don't drink animal blood, only human's" despite herself, she licked her lips just at the mention of it. Of course, it didn't bring her any relief, but it was a reflex she didn't bother to suppress. Then the redhead furrowed her eyebrows in concentration, and forced her canines to come back to a normal lenght and her eyes at their original hazel color. She slightly relaxed her shoulder, but kept her gaze firmly on the trunk she was holding on for the princess' dear life.  
Anna noticed all of that as well as the fact that despite the increasing cold, no air was condensing in front of the redhead's face, and she lifted her eyebrows when she realised that the vampire wasn't breathing at all. She remembered their conversation about it, and thought that even if smelling the werewolves would have been extremely useful once they got into their territory, in that moment smelling her was probably creating more problems than it solved.  
The princess reflected. The redhead was right: if she went all the way back she would have left the woman alone without protection in a land crossed by werewolves too much time. But, on the other hand, if she kept on not feeding herself, the vampire could have lost controll and attacked her, and in that case the princess doubted she would have lost time talking. But even if, and that was a big if considering she never had to in her long life, the redhead succeeded in holding back, she would have considerably weakened herself, and couldn't have helped much in case of an attack. So, very reluctantly, the princess took a decision.  
Anna came closer to the vampire till she lined up to her, and asked "In this state would you be able to bite someone without turning them? Would you be able to drink just a little of their blood, enough to keep your strenght intact but not so much to kill them?"  
Aleera furrowed her perfect eyebrows in confusion and asked in turn "Why should I do that? What are you…"  
Anna interrupted her "Just answer the questions. Would you be able to do as I asked?"  
The vampire thought for a moment, then answered "I think so."  
That answer didn't calm Anna, but she nodded nonetheless and said "Don't turn or kill me then." That said, she stepped back several paces and unsheathed a knife.  
"What are you…" Aleera started, annoyed at the princess' exit from her visual, but the noise of Anna's knife slicing her forearm in a supurficial cut interrupted her sentence.  
The tree's trunk the redhead was grabbing shattered as soon as she perceived Anna's blood emerging from the fresh wound. The vampire turned around, unbothered by the falling tree behind her, her eyes on the cut on Anna's forearm and on the red blood that was calling her; she felt her body changing again, and she knew that this time she could not have stopped herself.  
Anna swallowed as she observed the Aleera's hazel eyes turning in a flash into an inhuman purple that never failed to fluster her. The half smile on the vampire's face showed her canines longer than usual, ready to bite her. The princess asked herself if that had been a good idea at all or just a moment of deranged madness.  
Then, before the vampire could take a step forwards, Anna took one back and said, lifting an hand in stop "Don't turn me." The "and don't kill me" was unsaid but obvious, and not necessary, but she didn't want to become one of those monsters that had slaughtered her family.  
Aleera nodded once and a moment later, so fast that the princess couldn't see her, she was in front of her, grabbing her wrist. The anticipation was killing her, but she knew she had to be delicate and don't harm nor bite the woman, even if her entire being was urging her to do that exact thing. So she took a single moment to try and calm herself down as much as possible, but moreover, she took that moment to savour the anticipation, to commit into her memory the smell of fresh blood, sweat and fear all delightfully mixed together. She wanted to remember it all for all the years of her eternal life.  
Anna, on the other hand, wanted nothing more than that moment to pass and herself to forget it. Her entire body was screaming at her to run away, and she swallowed, trying uselessly to contain the panic. She threw her knife away to stop herself from hitting the vampire, telling herself that it had been her idea, and trying to calm herself down, but the redhead didn't give her the time to even finish that thought. She turned her wrist and laid her lips on her forearm, and Anna felt the frost of her skin to spread into her own body, as well as her terror.  
The long moment Aleera took to savour her most craved desire finally being granted passed, and the vampire, consumed by her bloodthirst at last, moved her lips on Anna's skin, tasting it for the first time. She couldn't appreciate its taste as she wanted to though, because only one thing mattered in that moment: Anna's blood. Aleera didn't want to waste any singe drop of it, so she carefully and slowly cleaned the princess' forearm from it with her tongue, and she swore the buds on it exploded at the delicious taste. It was rich, warm and beautifully, solely Anna's. Aleera moaned, consumed by it and by the unique pleasure only the blood was able to bring to her kind. She didn't stop as she moved her lips on the fresh wound and started sucking the blood from its very source, wanting, needing more, so much more.  
Anna, in the meantime, was shaking, and she hated it, she hated feeling vulnerable and afraid, and she hated being it because and in front of a vampire, but she couldn't help it; that was all she had fought against and was taught to fear and hate, and she had put herself in that situation willingly. Furthermore, she was terrified to die at last. Those thoughts were soon gone though, when she felt Aleera's tongue licking her skin, taking her time to gather her blood carefully and taste it for the first time. She shuddered at the sensation and flared up when she felt Aleera passionately moan of pleasure. Anna felt her own heart quicken almost painfully, and not only because of the fear. She didn't have the time to question or analyze the other unexpected feeling though, because the vampire, pushed by the need, grabbed her elbow to keep her in place, moved her lips on the cut and started sucking.  
Overwhelmed by conflicting emotions, the stronger being panic, Anna's mind started to slow down as she slowly started to lose her grip on consciousness. She felt like her energies were being sucked away with her blood, and it wasn't a pleasant sensation. She opened her mouth to say something, but all she could emit was a moan. She tought she would die like that, and never see Van Helsing and her people again. Suddendly, she felt a deep sense of sorrow, desperation and disappointment at herself, because her thoughts moved towards her family. And she realised that if she died there, in that moment, nine generations of her family woulnd't have been granted entrance to the Heaven because of her. And that she would die not trying to honor them and free them from their vow, but willingly feeding one of those monsters that had slaughtered them all. She felt sick to the bones, and decided that for that and that action only she would have accepted whatever punishment would have been given to her, and resigned herself to her fate.  
She didn't know that her moan had reached Aleera's ears and went through the mental fog caused by the bloodthirst, bringing her back to reality. Even if she didn't want to, she forced herself to slow down and think. She opened her eyes and saw Anna's face considerably paler than before, her eyes widened but absents, her legs shaking to the point that one fall and the princess kneeled on the ground. Worry flared up inside her, as well as fear at the idea of herself disobeying her Master's orders to not harm the princess. And even if she knew the blood she had taken from her wasn't enough, that she needed more to completely satisfy her bloodthirst, she forced herself to take her lips away from the wound and to crouch to the ground before the princess and wait for her to come back to reality as well.  
And Anna slowly did. She felt her head heavy, but she blinked a few times and succeeded in clearing her view of the world. She realised to be on her knees and that surprised her, since she hadn't noticed the fall. Finally coming to her senses, Anna found Aleera crouched in front of her, her forearm still in her cold hands, and a worried look directed at her. As soon as she noticed it though, it was gone, replaced by an amused smile and shining eyes. They were still purple, but at least her canines were back to human's. Then, when the vampire was sure she was come completely back to consciousness, she slowly licked her wound, looking at her straight in the eyes and keeping her smile while doing so. Anna felt her whole body flaring up and repressed a shudder that she told herself was of disgust, not pleasure.  
Then Aleera, always smiling, told her "You don't know from how much time I've craved your blood, Anna" and, lowering her gaze on her forearm, she added "It's even better than I imagined" she licked her lips and let her go.  
Anna immediately stoop up, but the sudden action caused her head to spin, and she had to lay her back on the tree behind her to support herself, ignoring the helping hands the vampire offered her as well as the pleased feeling born from that action. She grabbed her forearm with her other hand and lifted it closer to her face to look at it, and ignored the redhead's huff. To her surprise she didn't see any wound on her arm; her skin was smooth and without scars as it had always been. She lifted her eyes to meet the then hazel ones of the vampire, astonished, and the redhead chuckled and said "You are welcome" winking at her.  
Anna huffed, exasperated at her own blushing cheecks, and answered, annoyed "Don't expect any thank you."  
Aleera chuckled again and talked back "Don't be angry with me, you were the one who decided to feed me, and I didn't took much of your blood at all."  
"You didn't…" the princess was astonished "I almost fainted because of your thirst!"  
"That's not the reason" the redhead answered calmly "I know exactly how much blood loss it takes for an avarage human to faint, to be forced to bed for weeks, and to die. So trust me when I said that blood I took from you wasn't enough to make you faint."  
Anna scoffed "Then why did I?"  
"You almost did, princess" Aleera corrected her gently "I assume it was because of what you were feeling. Not phisically, I know I didn't hurt you, but emotionally. You seemed overwhelmed."  
The princess blinked a few times, shocked that the redhead came to the same thought she had had before. She was uncomfortable at the idea that the vampire could read and understand her that easely, but then she remembered that she had probably seen a scene like the previous one every time she and her kind would have fed on someone. What she didn't know was that Aleera had never cared to analyze or understand what her preys were feeling or on going thorugh when she was feeding on them, the only one which made her be careful and worried was the princess herself, but the vampire didn't tell her, also because she hadn't thought about it herself.  
Anna just nodded and murmured, more to herself than to the redhead "Yes, I kind of was."  
After a pause, Aleera murmured too "Thank you."  
That made the princess' head to snap in her direction, and she took in her sincere smile and still shining eyes as well as her calm, genuine tone with surprise, then, remembering what she was thanking her for and who she was dealing with, she answered detached "Yes, well, it was necessary. I didn't want to know what would have happened in the next days if you hadn't feed on someone soon."  
At that, the vampire shifted on her feet, seemingly kind of nervous, before answering "You wouldn't have liked it" and when the princess lifted a questioning eyebrow, the redhead elaborated "The Master told me that when vampires don't feed for a long time they become ruthless and wild monsters, out of controll, made crazy by the bloodthirst."  
Anna scoffed, marking every word she said heavily with sarcasm "Do they? Seriously? I'm shocked."  
Aleera half closed her eyes, annoyed, before answering, with a step forward "Why, how do you think humans react to starvation?"  
The princess took a deep breath, not really in the mood for an argument, and asked instead "Will it be enough, my blood?"  
The redhead pursed her lips and answered "Barely to keep my thirst under controll for a day or two." She took her hand to her throat, relieved not to feel it anching and dry anymore, but knowing better than assume it wouldn't come back being that way soon. Her eyes moved on Anna's neck, precisely on her pulse point, and she desired nothing more than to fill her own body with the blood that runned through the princess' veins. But she couldn't, and she knew it. She was more than happy thinking she probably would have to drink from her again soon. What put her joy to a stop was the knowledge that the woman in front of her surely wouldn't have been so thrilled to repeat the experience. And she really didn't know why she cared about what Anna wanted, nor she needed to find it out, so she took her focus back on the present and listened to something that suddendly caught her attention.  
Anna, on the other hand, had had enough about vampire sucking her blood for the rest of her life, and thinking that probably that wouldn't have been the last time a scene like the previous one would happen made her quite sick. She exhaled loudly in exasperation, and opened her mouth to said something, when she noticed that the redhead's eyes were absent and a smile was relaxing her features. An evil one, she noticed once it was fully formed on her face.  
Aleera moved her gaze back to meet hers and she continued from where she had left the speech "The blood I drank from you wasn't enough" a charged pause, in which the vampire's eyes flashed purple for a moment "But theirs will be."  
A "what" was already leaving Anna's mouth when she noticed three armed men entering their trees' circle.  
For one, single moment Anna felt sorry for them, because even if she knew that the vampire had to restore her strenght if they wanted their mission to succeed, she didn't like the idea of innocent humans dying. Still, it was all ultimately for her people's sake, so she had no intention to stop the redhead from killing one of them. But then all her simpathetic feelings for those men disappeared, as soon as she saw the looks they were giving them.  
"Are we interrupting something, ladies?" One of them asked, a sinister smile on his face, as they kept approaching them.  
Aleera gave the princess a reassuring smile, then she turned around and gave them a fake one, answering "Not at all. We don't mind the company."  
They chuckled, amused by the fact that the women thought they actually had a choice in the matter, and one of them came closer to the redhead, asking "What are two lovely ladies like you doing in a forest all alone by themselves?"  
Anna took a step forwards, aligning herself with the vampire, and answered "We are looking for a pack of werewolves that have attacked my village three times in the last week."  
One of the men, the youngest from what he looked like, paled visibly, but didn't say a word; noticing it, the princess asked "Do you know anything about it?"  
The two oldest men looked at each others, then smiled viciously and one of them answered "Perhaps we do. How much are you willing to pay to find it out?" when he saw Anna open her mouth to protest, he continued "This are difficult times, after all, and men like us had to find a way to survive" then he looked at the princess' mount "That's quite a good horse you've got there" and started moving toward it.  
Anna gritted her teeth, her hand already moving to her sword, when the other man took another step closer to Aleera, leaving just a few inches between them, and said, looking at her up and down "So you are werewolves hunting huh? Aren't you a little undressed for it?"  
The redhead chuckled "Cold hasn't bothered me for many years now, but" she runned her index finger up and down the man's chest, lowering her voice "I bet you're just dying to warm my body up."  
Anna would have rolled her eyes for the vampire's inner joke, if not for the violent rage that flared up in her when the disgusting man laid an hand on the redhead's neck, answering "You got it bitch"  
Without thinking, the princess unsheathed her sword and took it down violently to the man's forearm, slacing it and making him scream loudly for the pain.  
"That wasn't really necessary, Anna, but I appreciate it" Aleera said, then turned all her attention to the kneeled, bleeding man before her, her eyes instinctively finding the wound on his arm.  
"You bitch!" The man who was going to steal Anna's horse screamed, unsheathing his sword in turn and making the two women's head to snap in his direction.  
The princess didn't hesitate, with her adrenaline finally kicking in, she runned toward him, allowing her fighting skills to guide her.  
"Yes, come here whore, I'll cut your flesh open and then all of us will have our way with you both! And you are so not going to enjoy it!" He shouted again, smiling viciously.  
Anna just talked calmly back "We'll see about that" and their swords met with a metal noise, starting the fight.  
He really wasn't a force to be reckoned with, since his ugly face, furious screams and ability to sword fight didn't succeeded in intimidating the princess in the slightest. After all, she had had the best teachers of that land, and they had made her a very good swordswoman. The man must have realized it himself, because soon enough fear started to show on his face, as he shouted to the third man to help him.  
Anna opened his guard with an expert blow and kicked him into his chest, sending him to the ground, and turned around, looking for the other bandit.  
He had his gun in hand, pointed to the princess, who froze on the spot. She saw his finger moving to shoot her, but it never made it. Faster than a blink of an eye, in fact, Aleera snatched the gun away from his hand, grabbed his wrist and shattered its bone with her bare hand, hissing, her eyes purple and very furious. She then lifted him by the throat and threw him against a tree with so much force that his neck broke from the impact. Anna fliched at the disgusting sound, and the vampire turned her attention back to her, widening her eyes and shouting "Behind you!"  
The princess jumped forwards without even thinking about it, and felt the point of a sword grazing her back, failing to cause any damage. She immediately turned and hit the bandit's hand hard, disarming him. Then she grabbed his weapon in her other hand, rotating it in an expert way to show him that she wasn't messing around, and could fight really well with two sword too. The man swallowed and lifted his hands in surrender.  
Anna pointed her sword to his throat and the other one toward the redhead, saying "See my travel mate there? She's a vampire, in case you haven't noticed, and now she is going to kill your friend and drink his blood, do you understand?"  
The bandit paled visibly when he saw Aleera, purple eyes and long, sharp canines shining, hissing at him threateningly.  
Anna smiled at the reaction she had hoped to cause in him, and continued "So, unless you want her to give you the same kind of attention she will give to your friend, I suggest you start telling me everything you know about that pack of werewolves."  
She had barely finished the sentence that the man was already nodding vigorously, being stil very careful in not cutting his skin against her sword though.  
The princess smiled again, satisfied, then turned her head when she heard the other's man screams of help. Aleera had lifted him from the ground by his throat, and when he tried to hit her with his uninjured hand, she just grabbed it and broke its bones without even blinking.  
Anna flinched at his new cries of pain, but forced herself to turn to the other bandit again and, touching his neck with her sword more forcefully, asked "So?"  
He pressed himself harder into the tree behind him and answered "W-we had never seen a werewolf in our life since a few nights ago. Some men came to our camp, telling us that they were looking for a safe place to hide, asking strange questions, such as if anyone knew about our presence there and most importantly the presence of our settlement. We laughed to their faces, mocked them, answering no, and that they would have taken our secret to their graves as well" he swallowed hard before going on "But when we went to kill them they runned away, managing to escape us. We forgot about them soon enough, but the following night many monstrous, wolf-like beasts attacked us and slaughtered most of my mates. Just the three of us managed to escape, and we are moving south from there even since" he covered his face with both his shaking hands, crying in desperation "Please Miss, don't kill me! Don't let that redhead monster eat me! I may be a bandit, but I've never done anything so bad to deserve such an horrible death!"  
Anna scoffed "If your behaviour earlier and what you wanted to do to me were anything to go by, I might disagree with you" she made a pause, then asked "So is it safe to assume that those men were actually the werewolves that killed your people? And that they established in your den?"  
"I-I think so, yes" the man answered, still trembling.  
The princess thought for a moment, then affirmed "If you give me a map, or indicate me the exact location of your former camp I will let you go."  
The bandit looked at her dubiously, but then he glanced beyond her shoulders, paled visibly and nodded so vigorously that the point of her sword cut the soft skin of his neck and a few drops of blood went down from it.  
Anna smiled and directed all her attention exclusively on him, tuning out any other things but the bandit's words and his gestures as he gave her a map and indicated some points on it as he talked.  
After he finished, the princess stood up and nodded to him, taking the sword away from his throat and saying "You are free to go. Start running before I change my mind."  
The bandit didn't make her repeat herself; he stood up and runned away as if he had demons following him. Well, one of them was actually something very close to that, so fair enough.  
Only then Anna turned around, half expecting what she was about to see.  
Aleera, on the other hand, had lost interest in the bandit threatned by the princess ad soon as he had accepted to tell Anna everything he knew, and had quickly focussed again on the other man, the one bleeding on the ground.  
She needed to completely satisfy her thirst to be able to contain herself around Anna, not an easy task since she discovered how delicious her blood actually was. After that first taste she found out to crave it more, even more than she did before, if possible. But she couldn't feed on her again, or the princess wouldn't have had enough strenght to continue their journey, and the redhead couldn't permit that to happen; so she had to content herself with the blood of the man in her hold. She easely stopped his weak attempt to fight her, and crushed the bones of his hands with an almost bored expression she couldn't suppress, making the pathetic individual to cry in pain without blinking.  
She had always hated man like him , who thought they could use women as they wanted, and then move on to their next prey; and that was one of the very few things she remembered clearly from her past human life. And even if she had to pretend when those bandits first came closer to them, she didn't like when other men but her Master touched her that way, so much that she had had to keep herself from tearing his hand off to not expose her true nature to them yet, when Anna had intervened. (The warm in her non beating heart the redhead had felt at the action was something she would have thought about throughly later.) She appreciated the lusting looks quite enough though, because they made her know she had power over the men and, sometimes, women who casted them, and she used that power as she wanted to, but that was it. Touching her, however, was something she really cared to reserve just for the other brides and, most importantly, her Master, the only man who had ever had her heart and her unconditional loyalty.  
The man in her hold though, he probably had touched many women without their consent, and then, who knew, maybe also killed them. As a vampire, Aleera had the power to avenge them and to end his life before he could go after more. Thanks to her Master, she had the power to decide who could touch her and who couldn't, she had the power to defend herself and to fight for what and who she cared about, That's what she loved so much about being a vampire: the power, the fear and lust in the eyes of her preys whenever they saw her or even speak about her that gave her an ulterior hold on them, the delightful strenght and freedom she possessed, the power to do what she wanted. And in that moment, she wanted nothing more than to dry the bandit before her up. So she did, very roughly, as he deserved.  
With a growing evil smile on her face, Aleera slowly tilted his head, exposing his vulnerable neck to her hungry gaze. She savoured his fear a few moments more, then let her canines grow even more, remoulding her jaw, letting him see her feral appearance, then, satisfied by his screams of terror, she bited him suddendly and hard, finding his pulse point instinctively. Warm blood welcomed her, and she moaned, drinking it eagerly and feeling the life to come back into her undead body. The blood runned again through her, warming, strenghtening and revitalizing her limbs. Excitement and exhilaration followed immediately next, as she realized that since that insignificant human meant nothing to her she could dry him up, drinking and drinking his blood freely, without having to worry about killing him. She tightened her hands on the bandit's body, keeping him firmly in place, even holding him up when his knees failed to, never wanting to stop. She did, however, slow down when her thirst was satisfied, and the red fog in her mind caused by it started to dissipate. She would have gone on and on if the blood's taste was good enough, but she found it just…common, average, as if she was drinking it only because she had to, not mainly for its taste that, for a vampire, should have been nothing less than delicious, whoever was the person it belonged to. And yes, it was good enough to be enjoyable, and it did give her the ultimate pleasure only the blood could make her kind feel, but its taste went nowhere near the absolute delightful one of Anna's blood…wait a minute, Anna! She was her absolute priority in that journey!  
Only by that name alone, Aleera's mind cleared completely, and her eyes snapped open, immediately searching for the princess, fear gripping her body in not knowing for how long she had let her out of her sight and her senses, all focussed, as always, by the overwhelming sensations caused by drinking blood. Luckily, she saw her soon enough and relaxed, letting go of the dead body she was then holding, without even looking at it anymore. All her attention was on the princess.  
Anna, on the other hand, was petrified. That wasn't the first time she saw a vampire feeding, of course, but she had never stopped herself to see it happening, she had always tried to put as much distance between herself and the scene as she could, if it was already too late to help the unfortunate victime. But then, with no threats at her life, she had actually stopped to see Aleera feed on that bandit. Not that she cared for him, in fact, she absolutely thought he deserved it, deserved the way she was probably hurting him, and deserved to die by the teeth of what he considered just another of his preys. So no, that wasn't what had her watch, astonished, with very wide eyes the scene before her. It had been Aleera, of course. The redhead had had her eyes closed, and for the small part of her face she could see, she seemed completely in ecstasy. She seemed to be kissing the man's neck and she moaned while doing it; and Anna, despite herself, despite all she had always been thaught, despite everything, had felt a burning sparkle of intense jealously at the lustful display. And that scared her as nothing never had before. And then the vampire had suddendly opened her eyes and looked straight at her, letting go of the shell of the man she was previously holding as if he was actually nothing to her. The purple of her irises allowed the princess to see just how much dilatated her pupils were. Anna swallowed nothing as her mouth went dry, and her eyes inevitably fall to the redhead's lips, and she noticed some blood was adorning the upper one. As if her gaze had made Aleera to perceive it, she slightly disclosed her mouth and slowly licked it away. That sensual gesture had Anna to suddendly take three steps toward the bride, her chest heavening and her heart racing wildly, but then she stopped as soon as she realized what she was actually doing and, even worse, thinking. The princess gulped, then turned around and runned to the river, hoping that cold water could wash away those sinful, very hot feelings.  
In the meanwhile Aleera had watched, fascinated, as Anna's eyes became wild, violent emotions clashing into them. Another kind of thirst had risen in her as the princess had suddendly come closer, but seeing her running away had then instantly cooled her off. Something too similar to worry for the princess to the vampire's taste had blossomed in her chest, as she asked herself if the other woman was alright. Aleera knew that wasn't good, but she had to check on her and make sure nothing was wrong with her. She would have had the time to reflect on the previous, heated moment between the two of them later, in the silence of the night, when the princess was asleep. Pleased by that, she slowly made her way to the river as well.  
Anna splashed some water to her face and on her nape, happy to feel definitely more grounded after it. She took a deep breath and prepare herself to push all the thoughts about the previous moment in the depths of her mind for later, but of course she couldn't get a single moment of peace in that damn journey of hers. Soon enough, in fact, she heard the velvet voice of the vampire asking her if she was alright, and she told herself very forcefully that she hated the worry she easely caught in it. Nonetheless, with another deep breath, she turned and answered "Yes, I'm fine, just a little lightheaded for…well, everything that happened in the last half an hour. I just need a moment."  
Aleera didn't look convinced, and she opened her mouth to probably voice her concerns, when a menacing howl shattered the silence of the forest. Both women lifted their gazes at the same time and froze.  
The night had barely come that a bright, shining full moon was already up into the sky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The scene where Aleera comes back to Anna, things happen and Anna let her drink her blood is the first scene that came to my mind when I first started thinking about an adventure of these two character together, I hope you liked it as well as the changes of POV!  
> Let me know what you think!


	6. The werewolf

The delicate, silver moonlight enlightened the clearing and revealed the silhouette of an approaching, snarling werewolf.  
Anna swallowed and took her gun, pointing it at the beast, but the vampire's hand grabbed hers, stopping her. The princess barely noticed how her skin seemed to be warmer than usual.  
"Don't" the redhead whispered to her, not taking her eyes off the threat though "You will warn the others, and they will approach faster then they already are."  
"How do you suggest we deal with it then?" The princess asked, quite annoyed.  
"WE won't" the redhead's eyes shone purple "I alone will dispose of him, and much more quietly and faster then you ever could."  
Anna's head snapped in her direction so violently it hurted, and she massaged it, furrowing her eyebrows: in her experience, the only thing that could harm and kill werewolves was silver. So, unless Aleera didn't have a blade of said metal hidden in her clothing, which the princess very much doubted since she didn't seem the tipe, she didn't see how the redhead could "dispose of it" so easily as she claimed.  
"What? Are you crazy? It will overpower you!" The princess whispered, astonished.  
She had seen many demonstrations of the werewolves' strenght, and knew that the numerous, big muscles on their body didn't have just an intimidating purpose. Of course the gipsy princess knew that the vampires were strong beings too, but compared to those giant beasts they looked puny and weak. Another worry was that Aleera could heal herself very quickly, but Anna couldn't, and after what she tought had been the most intense half an hour of her life, she wasn't in the best shape to fight that beast either. In fact, she had no doubt that if the redhead's plan failed, whatever she had in mind, the princess couldn't have saved her life.  
So, for both their sakes, Anna really hoped that the vampire could actually deal with the werewolf, even if the monster's fighter herself had no idea how could she. The princess had never seen a fight between those two creatures, and she had never thought she would, so she really didn't know what to expect, not even if the two monsters could actually hurt each other.  
Apparently, if Aleera wanted to fight the threat herself, she at least believed she could harm and kill it and, for the second time that day, Anna found herself unable not to try and trust her; something she didn't like that much, but found not so hard to do again. After all, the first time the redhead hadn't betray her trust, so.  
"I really appreciate your worry for my safety, Anna" the vampire said, making a pause in her speech to meet her gaze with an amused but sincere smile, then took her eyes back on the still snarling, on guard werewolf and continued "but I assure you it's not necessary. Instead I suggest you to gather your things as soon as the dog is distracted, and prepare yourself to fly away, since this little fun I have now won't last fot long."  
Anna still had her doubts, but decided to let her deal with it, because keep discussing would have made them lose more, precious time than just let her go on with her plan. And they couldn't just leave, since the werewolves had the annoying ability to jump very high and even climb trees easily, and the one there with them could have reached them and brought them to the ground without many problems if they had tried to fly away. And then there was one more thing.  
"What about my horse? You can't carry it, can you?" Anna looked at her mount, which was pounding the ground with its feet nervously.  
Aleera's eyes snapped to hers, wide and astonished that she could think about an animal in that situation, but she brought them back to the intruse just a moment later "I can not carry you both in the same time. Furthermore, it won't come willingly, and it won't like to fly."  
"As if I myself ever did" Anna murmured between her teeth, which gained her another incredulous look from the redhead for keeping insisting on that, then said louder "Well I won't let my horse tied here to die. I'll free it at least, that will give him a little chance to survive the night. It's better than nothing."  
Aleera snorted, then talked back "Do as it please you, but don't attract its attention on you."  
"As if I willingly would" Anna thought, rolling her eyes, then started moving slowly toward her horse.  
That little movement caught the werewolf's attention though, and it snarled to her, taking a step in her direction.  
Anna immediately stopped, uncertain in what to do, but before she could decide if it was better to keep going or staying frozen to the spot, Aleera reacted first.  
To the princess' surprise, the redhead moved in front of her, phisically shielding her body with her own from the angry eyes of the beast. She crouched and turned in her bat form in an instant. Her colorful clothing stretched and merged in an unique layer of pale grey skin that covered her entire body, wrapping like a gauntlet and showing up her toned muscles. Her nails grew longer and thicker in sharp claws and her feet in bat legs. Only a couple of golden bracelets and her fiery, fire like red hair remained unchanged.  
Then, the vampire widened her mighty wings in a gesture that was both protective, toward Anna, and threatning, toward the werewolf, hissing. She also took a step forwards and showed her long, shining canines in a challenging gesture.  
With that, the unnatural wolf brought all his attention on her, seeing the biggest threat, recognising the challenge she threw at him and accepting it. The beast half closed its eyes, studying the redhead, and it showed more of his fangs, as its snarl became louder and more fierce than before.  
At that, the vampire just hissed again and moved her right arm as if to slice her opponent with her long claws.  
For a moment, Anna looked with rapt attention the exchange, both fascinated and shocked at the animalistic display.  
She had seen many times the werewolves behave like that during her entire life, and she had expected it from them, since they were basically animals that mixed both the strenght and the ferocity of the wolves and the worst traits of the humans.  
But the vampires were so similar to the humans that she sometimes forgot they were bloodthirsty beasts too.  
The princess forced herself to take her focus back on what she had to do and, always keeping her eyes on the scene to be ready for everything, she moved as quickly as she could toward her horse, untied it and pushed it in the opposite direction of the roars of the approaching pack. She really hoped it could make it out of that night alive; after all, the werewolves didn't care much about other animals, unless they provoke or attacked them. No, their homicidal instincts kicked in only with the humans, so her probably former mount should have been fine.  
Anna brought her attention back on the upcoming fight when she heard a louder roar than the previous ones, and turned just in time to see the werewolf scratching the ground and then charging the vampire.  
The princess' breath caught in her throat, she observed the scene anxiously and carefully, gun in hand, ready to help her travel mate if necessary.  
The vampire didn't seem worried to see that giant, snarling mass of muscles rapidly approaching her. She just kept hissing and then, at the very last second, when the werewolf jumped to clash with her, she dodged so suddendly Anna almost didn't see the movement, slipping to the side and managing to do so somehow graciously even in her bat form in the middle of a fight. The princess would have rolled her eyes in exasperation at the thought if she could let them leave the scene in front of her.  
The werewolf wasn't expecting the move as well apparently, because it didn't even had the time to try and stop its run before it clashed against a tree, destroying its trunk for the impact's force.  
That had been a good idea from the redhead, but Anna doubted that the fallen tree had done some significant damage to the other monster. In fact, it rose on its legs just a moment later, shaking slightly its head, as if trying to focus back on reality; probably the hit had just stunned it.  
Then it opened its yellow eyes and pointed them on the nearest enemy target: the princess herself.  
Anna tensed, trying to decide if she should wait and let Aleera go on with her plan or just shoot it, and in her hesitation she just lifted her gun but didn't have the time to do something more, because the beast was already attacking her.  
That had been its fatal mistake: he had forgotten for a single, vital moment which was the bigger threat to itself. And vampires, egocentric and narcissist creatures as they were, didn't like to be ignored, at all.  
This time, Aleera didn't emit a sound to threaten, challenge or warn the beast of her attack, she just went after her enemy, silent and deadly as only predators of the night could be.  
It was like the time itself slowed down, allowing Anna to see everything: from the angry yellow eyes of the werewolf, to its open mouth full of deadly fangs, to its tense muscles. And then, she saw the furious, ferocious face of Aleera appearing just over the beast.  
The vampire landed on the back of the werewolf and planted her long claws deeply in its flesh.  
The beast snarled and slowed down its run in surprise, but before it could stop it or even realise the real danger it was in, Aleera grabbed the fur behind its ears and forcefully brought its head back, exposing the might neck of the creature below her. The vampire's jawline remoulded and expanded itself monstrously as her canines grew at their full potential and shone evilly for a moment before sinking into the vulnerable neck of the werewolf.  
The beast roared in pain in such a excruciating way that Anna for a moment thought to hear an human scream in its tone, and almost sympathized its suffering.  
The princess observed horrified the vampire's canines go through the powerful muscles of the werewolf as if made of butter, and sinking into his neck till their roots.  
Aleera moved her head violently back, giving the beast a jerk and forcing it to move back from Anna, but the monster started to struggle to get her off itself; its weight all forwards in its body, it took a few step toward the princess again, and she moved to her left, muscles tense and ready, out of its trajectory.  
The werewolf crounched and reached its back with its long, powerful arms, grabbed the vampire's wings, slicing them in some points, and trew her in front of itself. The strenght it put in the act though, besides setting it free of the other creature's hold, also helped the vampire to literally open its throat, so much powerful and deep had been the redhead canines' grip on it.  
Anna saw vividly the splash of blood that went from the bite on the beast's neck, now wide open, following the vampire's launch.  
Aleera twisted graciously in the air and landed lightly on a tree not so distant from the princess, at her right, her claws immediately sinking into the bark of it, a piece of the werewolf's neck flesh still between her teeth, now back to a normal lenght, and her icy purple eyes always pointed on her adversary.  
The werewolf took both its clawed hands to its throat, trying unsuccessly to stop the hermorrhage, but it was useless: the blood was too much, it gushed from its neck in streams, seemingly not going to stop anytime soon.  
Its yellow eyes moved on the vampire, still attatched on the tree facing it, and took a deep breath, probably in an attempt to howl and warn its back of their presence and ask for help, but nothing apart from a pained sound went out from its mouth.  
Then, the beast seemed to decide it wasn't going to surrender without fighting and inflicting some damage in turn, because it turned toward Anna and took some unsteady steps in her direction, showing her its fangs.  
It never made it.  
After only two steps, in fact, a fierce hiss rang out into the circle of trees, and with a wood's creak Aleera jumped from the tree and hit the werewolf's muzzle with a powerful blow, slicing its face and sending the beast landing some metres back from them.  
The vampire then advanced toward her injured opponent on four legs, crouching protectively before Anna, wings widened, ready to attack again if necessary. That wasn't the case.  
The werewolf tried to get up, but fell back on the ground with a loud thump, while the stain of blood expanded underneath its body.  
Aleera hissed again and spat the flesh she tore away from its neck in front of its head, and both her and the princess looked at the dying beast until the light in its eyes burned out.  
For one single, blessed minute the silence stood unbroken, then the howls started again in the dark forest, this time closer than before, and Anna almost jumped out of her skin, brutally torn off her contemplation of the dead werewolf.  
The vampire turned toward her, still crouched near the dead body of her adversary. Her canines remained long, but not enough to force her jawline to expand as well to contain them. The blood was still dripping from her mouth, down on her neck and almost till her chest in great amount. Her icy purple eyes shone, amused.  
In that moment, Anna thought she had never seen her looking more scaring than that. And more remarkable neither. Not that she would have told her that. After that crazy afternoon, the princess didn't ask herself from where had that spontaneous compliment toward the redhead come from, she just didn't have the energies to. So she just shook her head to put it somewhere for later, and forced herself not to jump when Aleera finally talked to her.  
"Gather your things quickly, Anna" the vampire told her, as her toungue grew in lenght and started to clean her body from the lake of blood on it "We are leaving."

The princess sheathed her gun, grabbed her backpack and turned to look at the other woman.  
Apparently that was enough confirmation for Aleera, because the redhead jumped into the air, flew quickly toward her and the next thing Anna knew was that they were into the dark sky, higher every new beat of wings.  
The princess yelped and grabbed the vampire's arms, only then noticing that for the first time ever Aleera hadn't grabbed her with her clawed feet, letting her hang into the air. No, she was holding her between her arms, hugging her waist and keeping her against her chest. Anna felt her own heart pounding faster at that knowledge, and the warmth in her chest spread till her cheeks.  
Probably Aleera felt her heart quickening its pace as well, because her arms tightened around the princess, not enough to hurt her, just as much as the human needed to feel safer, and murmured into her ear "Don't worry, Anna, I won't drop you."  
The princess shuddered when the redhead's breath hit her skin, and its unexpected warmth as well as the surprising care and gentleness of the vampire's hold and words both relaxed and made uncomfortable the woman. Uncapable of forming words, Anna just nodded and forced her tense muscles to relax a bit as well.  
The gipsy was very tired. Not only phisically, but also emotionally.  
The blood loss and the fights had left her exhausted, and now that the adrenaline effect had vanished, she realized just how much she actually needed a good, long night rest.  
Furthermore, she also craved the oblivion of the sleep for a total different reason: to stop her thoughts. They hadn't been giving her mind any peace from some days now, and they went to many directions, but any single one of them concerned always the same subject: the redhead vampire who was carrying her to safety.  
The princess found herself continuosly searching her company, her figure, her eyes, which she had never really thought how incredible they were in their supernatural color. Anna shook her head. See? Even when reflecting on those thoughts her traitorous mind, that had always been very focussed on her priorities, now directed more often than not to the infuriating redhead. And it didn't help that that very afternoon, when she needed her distance from the other woman the most to regain her composure, not only the vampire hadn't conceded it to her, but had saved her life twice in literally less than an hour. And now, that same vampire was holding her with such a care that was very difficult for Anna to remember that she hated her. But did she, actually?  
That was a question she really didn't want to answer. Because she knew the redhead had always risen in her very core passionate answers and feelings, and Anna had always associated them to her deep hate and burning rage she had felt her entire life for their kind.  
But those last days she had spent so close to her had been different. Her hate toward the vampire was harder to summon with every new moment they shared together. And the princess feared she no longer felt it. Rage, confusion, burning passion she didn't want to name nor think about, those were the things the redhead was still able to rise in the gipsy, but no longer hate.  
And Anna had lived so long with that hate she didn't know what she would do without it. It had been one of her major motivation to go on and keep fighting, but now? Now when she thought about what those monsters had done to her family, she still felt her furious rage, but the hate? She could only feel it for Dracula, and maybe Verona, but not on that intensity. It had been the count the one who started everything, after all.  
But Aleera? She was another matter entirely now. Anna's burning hate for her was turning into something else, something burning with the same high intensity. Or maybe it wasn't changing at all, maybe it had always been there, and the princess had never figured it out.  
Well, whatever it was, Anna certainly didn't want to spare any more thoughts on it than she already had. It just didn't feel right that she felt for the redhead vampire anything different from hate, rage, revenge and any other negative feelings. And she wouldn't, not if she could avoid it.  
Anna had been trained to cover her role her entire life; she knew that with her steel willpower she could do it, she could stop those wrong and deviant thoughts and feeling to form in herself. And she would, but not that night. That night she was exhausted, and she just wanted the vampire to reach her destination, whatever it was, and let her sleep.  
Aleera, on the other hand, felt every single movement of the princess' body, pressed as it was against her own's. So her stiffness, as well as her racing heart didn't escape her perception. The speed of her vital organ, in particular, worried her. And not because the princess' blood consequentially run faster catching more of her attention as well, but, since her thirst was satiated, simply because that meant that Anna was upset for something.  
Since the human didn't seem eager to talk in that moment, the redhead guessed it was because of the flight. It made her puzzled, because that wasn't the first time she had flown, and on the contrary, it surely was the first time she did so safely. But she didn't ask anything to her, just went faster, as much as her injured wings allowed her to go.  
Yes, because when the werewolf had gotten her off its back, its claws had sliced the delicate skin of her wings. And they still hadn't healed. Aleera knew it would have taken them longer than normal to heal, since it was a werewolf that had done the damage, but it was annoying nonetheless.  
Sighing, Aleera concentrated on the flight and her destination again, tightening a bit more her hold on the princess' waist, which she found enjoyable to have between her arms.  
Anna, after forcing her mind to a calmer state, was slowly starting to relax more and more. She noticed that the vampire was flying fast but not uncarefully, and kept her hold on her reassuring, not suffocating. The princess appreciated that.  
Then the vampire accelerated and pointed to a mountain, and that made Anna a bit uncomfortable, actually. When they didn't slow down a few inches before the black rock in front of them, she tensed, but Aleera knew what she was doing. She was a creature of the night, and all her senses worked as perfectly during the hours of dark as they did during the day, if not even better.  
The redhead tilted to the left, then with an expert move, she flew straight in a big cavern and landed.  
She immediately let go of Anna, who looked around with an hand on her sword, more a reflex than a conscious precaution. The princess' eyes adjusted to the scarce light relatively quickly, thanks to the full moon.  
Anna relaxed and for a single, beautiful moment allowed herself to lower her guard, feeling safe and ready to sleep.  
Of course, it didn't last.  
The princess had just crouched next to her backpack to prepare her camp bed, when so many bats flew out of their nests and attacked her with loud noises. Without thinking, Anna screamed, jumping to her feet and tried to hit them with her arms, but there were so many of them she gave up and just tried to protect her head and her face from the little but numerous claws assaulting her. She was so damn tired of that damn day.  
The stressful situation lasted only one moment though, because the next one Anna found herself embraced by a soft, tensed material and a fierce hiss was sounding into her ears, followed by other scared little noises.  
When Anna opened her eyes again, she saw Aleera standing right next to her, their hips in contact and one of her wings wrapped protectively around her body. The redhead's arm was laid in an equally protective way on her waist, gently but firmly pushing her more into her wing's embrace.  
The vampire's expression was angry, her icy purple eyes pointed on the retreating forms of at least a hundred bats. No wonders they fled that fast: Aleera's enraged gaze was more scaring than any of those she had ever directed to the princess herself. And that said it all.  
The vampire hissed one more time, warning the nocturnal animals to stay away, and slightly relaxed when they disappeared from their view, lowering the tense arm she had been holding in front of the princess, but her wing didn't let go of her.  
After a few moments of silence, Anna exhaled loudly and slowly relaxed again, finding the wing's embrace actually reassuring and calming. She moved her eyes on the vampire's limb. Its skin was grey but tended lightly to a very clear blue in the feeble light of the moon, and was surprisingly soft at the touch, and warmer than she expected. Then, she felt something wet on her neck, and, not expecting it, she violently turned her head to see what it could be.  
It was blood, of course. But it didn't come from her, and half closing her eyes to see better in the darkness of the cave, Anna saw that the wing had some not so nice looking wounds on it.  
The princess turned towards the vampire's back and gently grabbed the delicate skin of her wing to examinate it better.  
Aleera noticed her warm, careful touch and, surprised by it, turned her head to look at the gipsy in question.  
When she saw the object of the princess' interest, she paused, uncertain. Why was Anna looking at her wounds like that? Was she surprised? Curious? Or could it be worry what was making her furrowing her eyebrows? Aleera found herself desperately wanting to know, to be able to read the princess' beautiful features and to react in the right way.  
She had the impression they were both walking into thin, thin ice there, and she didn't want to be the one who broke it. So she just waited, anxious, for the princess to do or say something, anything.  
Anna, on the other way, wanted to ask many questions. How was it possible that the vampire had been hurt and hadn't healed yet, but was, on the contrary, still bleeding? She had seen their kind bleeding in very rare occasions, and not for longer that a few moments, minutes at most. But the wounds now seemed still fresh, and the skin near them wasn't moving to cover and heal them as usually, the blood wasn't stopping. Well, it wasn't rushing out of the wound either, but Anna had a feeling that it wasn't normal. How long would the vampire remained hurt? Did the other wing had wounds too? Were they hurting? Was Aleera in pain? This last one, Anna really shouldn't care about the answer, but she did, very much. So she asked.  
"Do they hurt?" Anna's eyes moved to meet the redhead's ones, finding them already on her, as usual.  
The redhead's expression was unreadable, her features slightly tense, but they relaxed and her eyes softened when she heard the question and saw the genuine interest behind it. It was a strange thing to see such an human expression on her grey, demoniac face.  
"Nothing I can't handle" Aleera murmured back, looking at her closely.  
"I have never seen you bleed like this" Anna's eyes moved again on her wounds, and she lightly caressed the skin around them with her thumbs, then back to the vampire's ones, that half closed for a moment at the gentle gesture, enjoying it.  
"Yes you did" the redhead softly talked back "You were the one who made me bleed the most, in fact."  
There was no resentment or anger in her voice, there was nothing but her genuine will to keep conversating. The princess realized it, and found herself pleased by that knowledge.  
Anna's hand delicately touched the blood that was still fresh on the redhead's wing and said "Yes, but you have always healed instantly, why is it different now?"  
Aleera sighed and gently broke her wing's hold on the princess, who instantly felt the loss, crouched and quickly made the human's camp bed, pondering on the answer she would give her.  
The vampire certainly couldn't tell her that her wounds would have healed slower than normal because werewolves were actually included in the list of the few things that could hurt and kill her kind. They were, in fact, the vampires' natural enemies.  
But she couldn't tell the princess that. Even if there were next to none possibility that Anna could use practically that information to damage her Master and Verona, the redhead didn't want to risk it. If she had learned something from all their fights, it was that Anna was a very clever, resourceful woman, and she must not underestimate her, not when her family safety was in stake.  
When she finished to make the princess' camp bed, she stood up, but before she could answer her, the other woman lifted an eyebrow and asked "Have you ever in your life prepared one of those? You have never stricken me as the camping type."  
"I'm not, in fact. But I do learn quickly when I want to, and I've watched you do this bed many times" the redhead answered.  
Anna shook her head, slightly exasperated, and, while sitting down on her bed commented "Fascinating as always" to which the vampire barely chuckled, as if it was more a reflex than anything else, and the princess added "So?"  
Aleera looked at her for a moment, then jumped up and with the help of a single beat of her wings, she hung upside down at the cavern's ceiling.  
Anna knew she was starting to be monotonous, but seeing the vampire so comfortable in her bat form, doing things like that as if it was the most ordinary thing in the world, well, that was strange. She rolled her eyes at herself, but laid down on her bed to look at the redhead more easely, without having to twist her already sore neck. She found it immediately harder to stay focussed on the present instead of giving up to the tempting hug of the unconsciousness. But she made an effort and waited for the vampire's explanation.  
Aleera sighed and after a moment she started speaking "Well, you already know why, princess. I don't heal because I need blood to facilitate the process" which wasn't the whole truth, but neither a lie. Blood, the Devil blessed it, really helped her kind to heal faster from werewolf's wounds, as her Master once told her.  
The redhead mentally patted herself on the back, then she moved her wings to take a better look at them. Her skin still tingled where Anna had carefully touched and caressed it.  
"What?" The princess sounded astonished "You still need blood? But you said the one of that bandit was enough. You literally drained him."  
Aleera moved her eyes back to her to study her expression. She hadn't screamed or talked louder, just spoke faster. She didn't seem angry or upset, and she wasn't verbally attacking her as she had done so many times in the past. No, she just wanted to understand, Aleera realised. Well, that was another harmless information she could give her without a problem.  
"Yes, but that was to maintain my energies, maintain myself, and that was before that beast sliced my poor wings" she didn't want to make the princess upset, but she had to add "And, Anna, I always crave blood, even now."  
That said, the vampire automatically licked the one on her wounds away, hoping to fastening the healing process.  
Anna looked at her doing that and asked, slightly horrified "That is your own blood. Wh…" she interrupted herself; she didn't even know what to ask.  
Aleera shrugged and answered "Well, I really adore the blood, and I don't want I single drop of it to be wasted. But, I really love to be clean too."  
Seeing her licking her own skin reminded the princess of that afternoon, a scene that seemed to have happened a long time ago already. Two burning eyes looking straight into her owns, while a soft tongue cleaned the knife's wound on her forearm.  
Anna flared up everywhere and closed her eyes, taking a deep breath and feeling her body giving up a little more to the awaiting sleep.  
Still, the princess asked "Well, if you really crave blood that much, and mine, quoting you, tastes really good, why did you stop? Why haven't you drained me?" She was quickly losing her grip onto consciousness, and onto her mouth too, since she was only partially aware of what she was saying, but she didn't stop "You don't need me, after all. You have seen those traces, even a child could follow them. And you said a few moments ago that you learn quickly when you want to; I bet you could go to those monster's den even right now. Seeing in the darkness isn't a problem for you, is it?"  
The resignation in her tone was hurting Aleera, who felt a strong need to reassure the other woman, but had she even the right to?  
A pause, in which both of them swallowed, both fearing and wanting Anna's next question to be asked.  
And after a beat, the princess did "So why don't you take my blood right now, heal yourself and go? I'm in no condition to fight you, same as this afternoon, so why did you stop back then? What is stopping you now? You don't need me anymore, as doesn't Dracula."  
Another long pause, then, the redhead, surprised by the princess' questions, by her low, malmost melanchonic tone, and moreover, just overwhelmed by indecision and conflicting emotions, answered "I'm here to protect you, not to hurt or kill you, Anna. The Master gave me precise orders." The last sentence she added just a moment later after the previous one, not wanting to reveal how personal involved in the princess' safety she was actually getting.  
Anna snorted humorlessly "Dracula wants me dead, just like the rest of my family."  
"He did" the redhead answered, then, before she could stop herself, she added "But now He has other plans for you."  
Aleera realized her mistake when she heard the sharp intake of breath of the princess, and she had no doubt that in any other situation Anna would have sat up violently and claimed an explanation. Hell, she would probably also point a gun against her in doing so.  
But that night the human was truly exhausted after the very stressful day she had had, and her only other reaction was to furrow her eyebrows and tense, as if trying to shake the tiredness off of her, but apparently she failed, because all she managed to do was asking a question "What do you mean?"  
Seeing an escape from that mess, Aleera made her voice even softer than it already was, lowering and manipulating it to help the human surrendering to the alluring sleep that was claiming her "Nothing you need to worry about, Anna. You have been so brave and good today, but now you need to rest. Everything else can wait. Now sleep and have a good night, princess."  
The moment she stopped talking, Anna's breath and heart slowed down to a calmer, deeper rythm, and the redhead sweetly murmured "Sweet dreams, my love."  
The vampire observed the human sleep for a few, peaceful moments, then the reality hit her, and she moved an hand through her always perfectly brushed hair, sighing deeply.

That afternoon had really done a number on the redhead vampire. She had let her guard down near the princess too much, and what if now it was too late to lift it up again?  
Aleera was no stranger to attraction and lust. She lived them every day of her life, thanks to her Master, the one and only one man she had ever loved. She felt them for the other brides too, and it wasn't a big deal nor a problem to her. She lived in the sin, in the pleasure, in the freedom and in the power and she loved it. She had always had everything her unbeating heart had ever desired. Until she had met the gipsy princess.  
Aleera had always been particularly obsessed with her, from the very first time she had met her eyes.  
In the beginning, she had only been curious to know more about the brave, remarkable woman who had always fought so hard for her people and her family against beings so much more powerful than her, in which was definitely a fight against all the odds. But the human had never given up, not once. The fire in her eyes had never burnt out.  
But a part from that, the vampire had noticed that the woman lived a simple, ordinary, restricted christian life. Quite limited then, in the redhead's opinion. Of course she hadn't observed nor stalked the princess day and night, but, after a while, she had realized a very important thing: the fire in her gaze burned its brightest only when she fought the redhead and her immortal family. And that had caught her attention the most.  
And then, there was the fact that Aleera had always had so much fun playing with her, with her fire. It never failed to fill her of excitement when she knew she would have met her in their visits at the village. Sometimes, when she wasn't busy pleasing her Master, or spending time with him and the other brides, she found herself almost counting the time to their next encounter.  
The princess had made her immortal, amazing life even more funny than she had thought possible. And it didn't damage the fact that the princess was actually a real joy for the eyes. On the contrary, that made playing with her, teasing and provoking her with her tempting words, looks and gesture even more exciting.  
And the current time they were spending together had only made those sensations, emotions and desires to grow, as did the magnetic attraction she had always felt toward the human. And Aleera was fine with it. She firmly believed that life had to be lived fully, and she lived that way. Passion, desire, lust and other harmless emotions like those were the pepper on the redhead's life: they made it more tasteful, and she adored that.  
Furthermore, after all the exquisite things she had spent decades doing with the other brides, she certainly didn't mind at all that those emotions in her were caused by a woman. Sometimes, she daydreamed about doing those same delightful things to Anna, and wondered for hours about her possible reactions.  
Since the gipsy princess was a faithful christian, the vampire really doubted that she would ever even consider or think about doing things of that kind with her. She probably didn't even know that it was possible for humans to have an attraction, if not even feelings, for other people of the same sex as themselves.  
Regardless, that hadn't mattered to the redhead for a long time, on the contrary, it had added something more in the seduction game she was doing with the princess. She had a lot of fun only by thinking about how troubled and upset the woman would have been if what she certainly considered impure thoughts toward the vampire had ever crossed her mind even for the tiniest moment. Yes, the redhead lived for the caos she could bring into the lives of those poor, insignificant mortals.  
And yet, after those few days spent close together, the princess was anything but those things to her. And that was the problem.  
Aleera could manage attraction, passion, even lust toward unappropriate subjects just fine. But something deeper, like real feelings? That she did not know how to deal with. And things like care, worry and lowering her guard? Those were frighteningly similar to feelings.  
Seeing Anna that fragile barely half an hour ago had moved something inside of herself. Of course she had known that those bats weren't an actual threat to the princess, but she just couldn't bear to see her hurt in her vulnerable state.  
The sense of protection which had risen into her had been powerful like almost nothing she had ever felt before.  
And the way she had asked if her wounds hurted, the way she had gently caressed her skin around them? Her genuine interest in her nature, without second ends or harsh judgment? The moment they shared, both anxious and vulnerable to each other?  
That, all of that, had been very strange for the vampire. Also, beautiful.  
Aleera had felt in peace, and for the first time, she had truly lived the moment without her confident, lustful and playful mask. She had been her true self, someone she wasn't letting out for a while now. And succeeding in doing so with Anna? Well, that was honestly a little scary. And undoubtly very dangerous. That situation could not end well.  
Anna probably knew it too.  
Because the one in the cavern hadn't been the only moment of the day they had shared, it hadn't been the only moment they had connected so deeply. But the other one that came to her mind was very different.  
Just after the vampire had drained that pathetic bandit, when she had met the princess' eyes, she had seen something familiar in them, but also very different. It was the same fire she had when she fought for what she believed in, but it burned a thousand times brighter. Was it possible that it burned for the redhead? That it was caused by something else that the usual hate and rage? That the vampire thought was the case, but what exactly had lighted it up she couldn't tell. But damn it if Aleera wanted it all, nonetheless.  
Whatever it was, it had scared Anna before the redhead could do anything about it, and that was saying something, since Aleera, being a vampire, had the fastest reflexes on that earthly world.  
Seeing the princess that scared had been another thing that had moved something inside of her, a desire to help another being that wasn't her Master that she couldn't for the life of hers remember when she had felt the last time. Probably in her previous human life.  
Also holding Anna tightly in her arms had felt very good for the vampire. Cuddling wasn't really something she did often as well, so she didn't know from where that pleased sensation came from, since she had never felt it with her Master, not with that intensity, by the way. What she did know, was that she would really like to hold her again like that.  
And the worst thing was that the need she had to keep the princess close and safe had less and less to do with the desire of perceive her blood closely and with her Master's orders, and more and more to do with the increasing good emotions she felt in doing so.  
Aleera sighed again.  
Feelings, ugh. She would have really preferred not to reflect on that whole mess, and just ignore it and wait for it to go away.  
That mess didn't concern only her though, but the princess as well. Furthermore, it probably scared Anna, if the scene at the river was anything to go by.  
And while the vampire shouldn't have cared about the princess' feelings, thoughts or worries, well, she did. A lot. It had always been all or nothing for the redhead, now it was no different.  
So, she would have found a way to deal with all of that and, if she could, she would have protected the woman from it at the best of her possibilities.  
But first things first.  
They still had a mission to accomplish. And her orders were still the same regardless of her change of heart: escort and protect Anna. And she would have done that for her Master, but for the princess' sake as well. Mostly for the princess' sake.  
The vampire looked at her wings and smiled. The wounds had disappeared. If only she could solve that mess with the same speed…  
She moved her eyes to the sleeping princess again. Her steady heartbeat as well as her deep, calm breaths told her that the woman's worries weren't disturbating her rest. That brought a little, but genuine smile on her lips.  
  
That, whatever it was, was so not going to end well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What do you think?


	7. Heart or soul?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi!  
> I'm sorry for the delay, I had to change a few things about this chapter, but now it's up!  
> Little angst here, but I hope you enjoy it nonetheless!

Anna slept without troubles the whole night, the exhaustion allowing her a dreamless rest.  
When she finally woke up, she automatically searched the vampire with her eyes, and found her still hanging at the cavern's ceiling, already looking at her. The redhead's wings were embracing her body, and the princess had to hold back and amused snort when she saw the considerably smaller bats next to her in the exact same position.  
"Ehi" she greeted her with a toothy smile, then, feeling stupid for it, she quickly went on "Is it morning already?"  
Aleera's purple eyes shone for a moment, amused, then she answered "It is, good morning princess."  
Anna nodded to her, then her gaze shifted on the vampire's wings, and as her memories of the previous night came back to her, she exclaimed "Your wings!"  
She stood up suddendly and approached the redhead, tilting her neck to see her limbs better "They have healed!"  
Aleera, surprised by the enthusiasm, didn't move for a moment, then she jumped down, invading the princess' personal space without thinking about it and opened her wings, implicitly allowing the princess to touch them, if she wanted.  
And Anna didn't let her wait, she extended her hand, delicately moving her fingers on the grey skin that just a few hours prior was cut and crossed by blood. The princess caressed it absent-mindedly, meeting the redhead's eyes and saying "I thought you needed blood to healing your injuries."  
Aleera was making a real effort to not show how much she enjoyed the woman's delicate caresses on her wing, and her gaze was intense when she answered "I needed it to quicken the process, not to start it."  
Anna nodded, and for a brief moment the two women stood there in a peaceful silence, looking into each others eyes and enjoying the contact of the princess' fingers with the vampire's soft skin, which none of them had interrupted yet.  
Then reality hit the gipsy, who widened her eyes and froze her hand, hastily taking it away and stepping back.  
Memories of the evening before came into her mind, attracted by the same sense of peace and safety the princess had felt back then as she was feeling right in that moment. Panic soon followed, when she realised how wrong it was to feel that calm and safe in the presence of one of her family's archenemies.  
Those conflicting, powerful emotions would have teared her apart if she hadn't take order in that mess and reflected on them and that situation till she found a valid path to follow. But she couldn't do that in that moment, not when the redhead was standing right there and looking at her as she never had before. Well, the intensity was the same, but something had changed in her eyes. The vampire was no longer looking at her like she was an exciting challenge and a delicious meal, not anymore, on the contrary she almost seemed…worried? Caring? But she couldn't be, could she?  
Anna could handle a vampire playing games with her, but one for which she had confusing and conflicting feelings who maybe, maybe…returned them? That she didn't think she could handle. And, she certainly couldn't right then in that moment with her. That was a situation too complicated to be faced just following what her guts told her. No, she needed to reflect, and then act. And she would, once she was alone.  
So, Anna cleared her throat, desperately searching for something to say to break that uncomfortable silence, and when the trace of something incomplete came up into her mind, she furrowed her eyebrows and asked "Were we talking about something before I fell asleep yesterday?"  
Aleera, which had actually been worried in seeing the princess moving away from her that way and hearing her heart beat so fast in her chest, at the question tensed and forced her face to become blank "Only about my wings, which are perfectly fine now."  
The princess kept her brow furrowed, still trying to remember what she was missing, and answered absent-mindedly "Yes, I'm glad to see it."  
The redhead smiled, seeing an opportunity, and talked back "Why, Anna, I really am growing on you, am I not?"  
Anna blinked twice, and asked, puzzled "What?"  
The vampire smiled and took a step forwards, lowering her tone "All this worry and this care for me and my health, I am flattered."  
At that, the other woman blushed a little and adverted her eyes, which made Aleera to understand that she had actually succeeded in shifting her attention, then scoffed and murmured "Yeah, you wish" and she sat down and started eating her breakfast.  
The redhead chuckled and decided to drop it, satisfied; she crouched in front of the princess, turning back into her human form in a blink, and asked "So, how far deep in the forest do you think we have to keep going to find those strays' den?"  
Anna met her gaze, surprised by the question, then chewed for a bit, pondering on the answer before giving it "Well, not much more, if the indication that bandit gave me are correct. But I do believe they are, since we met one of those monsters last night, and judging from the howls the others weren't that far away as well. I'll need to check to ground nearby to see if there are other leads that can help us figuring out how close we are to their den."  
"Other leads such as?" The vampire asked, eager to help.  
The princess lifted an eyebrow "You have had werewolves at your service for centuries and you don't know which are the signs of their presence in a territory?"  
Aleera moved an hand in a dismissive way, explaining "It's the Master who interacts with them the most, or Verona sometimes, but I have never really cared to get to know them more than I needed."  
Anna rolled her eyes, then said "Well, I have never seen or heard about a whole pack of werewolves, but I guess they'd just have a bigger impact on the territory where they settle. You'll have to look for lack of big animals, fallen trees and generally a very ruined ground; with those claws they can't help marking it. Anyway, we'll have to check just as a precaution, since that bandit had been very precise with the indications of his former camp's whereabouts."  
The redhead slightly tilted her head "How much precise?"  
The princess reflected for a moment before answering "Well, he said it would have taken more or less a day to reach it from where they assaulted us, and that by foot. So if we can find my mount, maybe I'll cover that distance in half a day, or less."  
The vampire huffed, lifting her hands to stop her right there "It's a waste of time waiting to find your horse when I can carry you same as I did last night without problems, so we will not."  
Anna stopped chewing her food and her eyes widened as she considered the implications of the redhead's words.  
Hers wasn't actually an absurd proposition, since travelling like that would have been faster and safer, but how could she accept, when the mere thought of being held by Aleera's strong arms sent alarming shivers down her spine? How could she allow the redhead to keep her so close to her body when she both longed and was afraid of that closeness? How was it possible that the human herself was both repulsed and yearning of the vampire's embrace?  
Anna didn't have any answers for her own questions, no matter how much she wanted them, but she did know that she should avoid any inappropriate and unnecessary contact with the redhead, at least until she figured that mess out. The only problem was that the implied contact proposed wasn't actually unnecessary, and not even that inappropriate. It would have been, on the contrary, very useful and really helpful. Even the princess, with her no little pride could see and admit that it was a clever idea. So how could she convince the vampire of the contrary?  
The princess chewed twice and swallowed the food, thinking. Then she lifted her eyebrows and met the redhed's gaze "Firstly, thank you kindly for asking my opinion before deciding for both of us. Second.."  
"I didn't ask for it because it's the best plan we have" the vampire interrupted her "And also because I refuse to stay still and look as you go risk your life searching for an animal when it's faster and safer to.."  
"Who is the one who worries and cares for the other now?" Anna interrupted her in turn, smiling victoriously.  
Aleera just shrugged, unperturbed "Toucheé."  
The gipsy blinked twice, surprised, and her mouth fell open, incapable of forming words.  
If she could, she would have face-palmed herself. Where did that comment come from? And why couldn't she just shut her mouth? She had put herself in an uncomfortable situation with her own hands, just one of those situations she meant to try very hard to avoid, one of those where strange feelings and a warm sensation in her belly were involved. In her defense, the admittance, or better, the lack of negation of what she had affirmed had been the very last thing she would have ever expected from the vampire. It had had and still was rendering the princess speechless, which did not happen often.  
After all, one thing was dancing around their complex situation, a totally different one was openly admitting the even more complicated change in it.  
In the meanwhile, Aleera was just sat there, looking innocently back at her without a care in the world, as if she hadn't just changed irrevocably their dynamic for good. Why did she seemed so unaffected by it when on the contrary the gipsy so heavily was? Was it all just a game for her? Had she just been playing a part during their time together? Why was the mere thought about it scaring the princess?  
And moreover, why was Anna worrying and caring about that at all?  
Just a few days before she would have laughed in the vampire's face and mocked her for what she considered foolish, not to mention a weakness.  
Now the gipsy couldn't bring herself to do it, nor to scold herself for it, no more than she could extinguish the feeble flame of hope that had risen into her chest at the redhead's words. Hope that things could actually change between them for the better, hope not to be alone in that mess, hope that maybe, maybe the vampire's feelings toward Anna were changing too. But hoping even one of those things was so, so wrong for too many motives to count, the princess knew it in her head, and yet her heart still refused to listen to reason, or stop hoping.  
When she was younger, she used to listen to her heart more, but living in that cursed, dangerous land and seeing her family members being killed one by one had hardened her until she had understood that she could not allow herself to get her feelings too involved into the fragil people she had to protect, at least not until the threat was defeated for good. And she had tried hard to do so, but she couldn't change herself, and neither her passionate, big heart.  
She had respected and loved dearly her father and her brother, but then they died, leaving to her a legacy that was way too heavy to bear for one person alone. Yes, she loved her people, and was loved back by them, but after the great pain she had suffered for her last relatives' deaths, she really tried to keep herself from caring too much again, to keep her heart protected.  
And it had worked. She had still done her best to protect the village and its inhabitants, but, as bad as it was to feel and say it, every new time she had failed she had felt a little less pain about it. Every new death was still an ulterior weight on her shoulders, and she accepted it, but her heart didn't cry with the intensity it used to anymore. It had finally accepted the horrible reality they lived in and hardened itself.  
So it was a little unsettling to say at least that it had awaken for the vampire, one of the monster which had forced it to close itself almost completely, from all people.  
Anna was secretly a very romantic soul, but she was a woman with feet on the ground too, and she knew that open her heart to the feeble hope of a change in her relationship with the redhead for the better was a very bad idea, since their situation was fated to end badly for at least one of them.  
Yes, she had been pleased to see the spontaneity of Aleera's answer, as if she was actually worried for her safety without second ends, but she knew better. The vampire was there protecting her because Dracula had ordered her to, and even if the signs that Aleera maybe could have grown to care for her on her own, she was still one of the count's brides, and Anna didn't want to let herself trust her intentions for that fact alone; her precious Master would have always come first.  
Furthermore, the redhead had been a vampire for centuries, and she certainly had learnt to use her charm and her other attributes very well, so how could the gipsy be sure that she wasn't manipulating her right then? How could she be sure that the other woman hand't been playing a part in the time spent together? She couldn't, not one hundred percent. And she wanted, needed, to be more than sure that she could trust Aleera before even thinking about hoping for something better with her.  
End of internal debate.  
Anna cleared her throat, and said "Anyway, how about the sun? How can you fly me anywhere with it?"  
The princess hadn't actually looked at the sky before speaking, but she hoped that for once the odds would have been in her favour.  
And luckily, for once, they were, since the vampire grimaced and answered, annoyed "We will wait for the clouds to cover it."  
Anna chuckled and readily answered "I thought you said we mustn't lose time?"  
The redhead half closed her eyes "Are you serious?"  
The gipsy stood up, gathering her things and preparing her backpack "Yes, at least one of us has to be."  
The vampire sighed, then asked again "Are you seriously that anxious to put yourself in danger? And for what? For a steed? You can get another one when we get back to the village!"  
Anna didn't look at her when she answered calmly "Relax, I'm not doing anything reckless or stupid I promise."  
The redhead snorted derisively "And how can you keep that promise when you are breaking it already?"  
At that, the princess turned to her, quite annoyed herself, since the vampire was making her strategic retreat a bit too difficult for her tastes "Seriously, what's the matter? You don't think I'm able to defend myself? I'm armed."  
The vampire twisted her lips "It's not that.."  
The woman approached the entrance of the cavern, putting her hands on her hips, in a no nonsense gesture that the redhead actually found more sexy than intimidating, and asked "Then what is it?"  
Aleera sighed. She really didn't want the princess to go out there alone.  
Yesterday they hadn't had real troubles in managing the attack, but they were together, and even if the human was most certainly in a better shape after a night long rest, the vampire didn't want to take any chances. She didn't want to think about what could happen if Anna met more than one werewolf when she wasn't with her.  
She didn't understand why she was insisting so much on going out there alone either. But she wasn't ready to confess her genuine worry and care for the other woman, not yet at least. So she gave another motivation for her protest, one that should have been her main reason to behave like that; one that would have still served her purpose.  
The redhead cleared her throat "The Master had ordered me to protect and escort you for all the lenght of your mission, and I intend to obey Him, as I always had."  
Little did the vampire know, that was the worst answer she could give her.  
Anna's head turned violently in her direction, her already sore muscles complaining about it but she didn't care. No, because she had just been reminded that the redhead wasn't there protecting and travelling with her because she wanted to, but only because her precious count had told her so. And his words apparently were orders to her.  
The princess was reminded that the one in front of her wasn't a real person, but just a puppet, being moved by another will, an actress playing a part, a mask which would dissolve itself at the end of the mission.  
And so Anna had her answer.  
She couldn't trust Aleera, the woman she had talked to, been relaxed and carefree with, shared and developed intense feelings for, the woman she had seen behind the monster, because that woman apparently wasn't real. Because all that time she had been accompained by the monster, the puppet of her master, the bride of the count. And how could a soulless vampire, there under precise orders, have grown feelings for her? Well, she just couldn't have.  
The realization that everything that had happened between them was false as well as the knowledge that all her internal struggles had been for nothing hit her like a punch in the gut, while all her hopes burnt out in her chest. And it hurt like hell, but Anna needed it. She needed a rude awakening from that perverse, blasphemous dream of hers. And now that she had had it, she could have finally moved forwards.  
The princess straightened her back then, and answered coldly "Too bad he's not my master as well, because that means this is not my problem."  
Then she turned around and, after checking the height from the ground, she slided out of the cavern, leaving behind an astonished and speechless vampire, which, thanks to the sun, couldn't follow her.

Anna climbed down the mountain without much troubles,thanks again to her hard training.  
Once her feet were on the ground, she looked around, thinking about her next move.  
Well, she had succeeded in getting some much needed time alone and especially phisycal distance from the vampire. She still had a job to do though, so she turned around, trying to find the direction they had come from the night before; using her memories and the position of the sun, she made a guess and started walking.  
For a time, she managed not to think at her thorny dilemma, as alle her being was focussed on finding the werewolves' traces and her steed. The latter wasn't actually necessary, but things would have been better for her if she did, so.  
It was good to be so concentrated on a task again, without other things on her mind; it felt quiet and peaceful.  
After a while, Anna finally found the clearing where they had been attacked not once but twice in less than thirty minutes the day before. The gipsy was still astonished by their misfortune. How many were the chances of something like that to happen?  
The princess looked at the ground carefully, and found the horse's traces almost immediately. Reassured, a new, hopeful smile on her face, she started to follow them.  
Anna could easely read the steed's pace thanks to them, and when she noticed it slowing down (which was pretty soon, seen how much tired had been her mount), she started to whistle in a specific way, as loud as she could.  
The gipsy had to repeat it only twice, and then a rewarding whinny answered her.  
Anna smiled and stopped, waiting.  
In a few moments, a galloping sound preceding it, her horse came into view, running toward her.  
The princess smiled widened as she lifted an hand, to which the animal immediately leaned on its forehead, huffing affectionately.  
After the greetings, Anna carefully checked the steed, loking for injuries, but luckily finding none; then she was on the saddle once more, directing the mount back toward the clearing.  
She kept the horse on a slow pace, not wanting to push it too hard. It was already a miracle that the animal was alive and that it had been trained as well as the princess' own horse; she didn't want to test her luck any further and have the steed die for exhaustion. She didn't know what it had been through the previous night, after all.  
Once arrived to the clearing once more, Anna briefly looked for the werewolves' oldest traces, then started following them again, hoping to keep leaving all her conflicting and unwanted thoughts behind her.  
Of course, all her hopes were in vain.  
The traces were very easy to follow, and even someone less experienced than her would have succeeded. The forest was calm and quiet, no allarming noises or threatning howls disturbing its peace. Even her horse was very relaxed, simply enjoying the walk and following her guide.  
All of that made Anna herself slowly relaxing her shoulders and tense muscles. She still kept her weapons ready to be used and paid close attention to the traces and the surrounding environment, but that apparently wasn't enough to stop her mind to come back to that morning's thoughts.  
Of course, thinking about the redhead vampire and everything related to her ruined Anna's peaceful ride.  
She scolded and repeated herself why she couldn't let herself have a carefree moment or lower her guard with the vampire ever again, and that she should think more about her people instead. Her thoughts went that way then, but asking herself over and over again if leaving had been the right choice without knowing how they were did nothing to improve her mood.  
Furthermore, around midday the sky became cloudy, and a few thunder roared, breaking the forest's silence, and a moment later it was raining.  
Anna huffed and stopped her horse between two big oaks. She dismounted, climbed on one and tied some branches together with the other ones', creating a little natural roof for herself and her mount. Then she tied her horse and sat down, back against a tree, quickly eating her lunch: it was a good moment to take a break, and she wasn't worried that the rain would have cancelled the traces. They were deep inside the forest, and all those trees with their wide crowns would have protected the ground from most of the water.  
The princess decided against making a camp fire; after all she knew very well that storms like that lasted the time that took them to form themselves, so it wasn't worth it, it would be gone soon. And, she didn't want to attract more unwanted attentions.  
Anna laid her head on the oak behind her, enjoying and relaxing at the sound of the rain. Soon enough, though, a different but familiar one caught her attention: a mighty beat of wings.  
She sitted up just in time to see the grey bat form of the vampire breaking through the trees.  
Her horse whinned at her view, and Anna quickly stood up and went to calm it.  
"So you did find your steed after all; I hope you are happy now" came the scolding but calm voice of the redhead.  
The princess heard the bride landing behind her and asked, annoyed "Coming to check on me already?"  
She heard Aleera sighing deeply before answering "I'm not here to check on you but to protect you."  
The vampire hadn't really understood the other woman's strange behaviour hours ago, but she had hoped not to find the same cold and detached attitude later; sadly it seemed that she was wrong. Not that it would have discouraged her in any way: she would have been there and protect the princess nonetheless, but still.  
Anna turned to her, an answer about how she didn't need a guardian ready on the tip of her tongue, when she froze at the view before her.  
Aleera was standing a few steps from her, in her human form, completely wet for the rain.  
The princess swallowed, taking in the way her soaked clothes sticked to her body, perfectly wrapping her voluptuous curves and showing her pale skin under the former white and then transparent parts of her vest. Anna's eyes widened at the exposed, shining skin of her cleavage and subconsiously followed some water blobs in their run down the vampire's chest till a destination forbidden at her suddendly hungry orbs. She gulped and took her gaze back up guiltily, only to be meet by the regal vampire's face. Her long, red hair were graciously laid on one shoulder, the christallized rain's drops on them shining as thousands diamonds; her expression calm and her appearance relaxed as if the fact that she was completely soaked in cold water didn't bother her in the slighest.  
She was beautiful.  
That thought so sudden and inappropriate hit Anna deeply, as it happened so often those days.  
Of course the princess knew Aleera was beautiful, as the other brides were. They were vampires, the very incarnation of human's most sinful thoughts and fantasies, made perfect and stunning by the Devil himself to lure the mortals in their and his trap, to take them away from the light of God and lead them into the pleasures of a sinful darkness.  
That was what had always been thaught to Anna and to the villagers in Dracula's reign. To beware the vampire and his brides, because they would have taken every single one of them not only to their death, but to their souls' perdition. And in such a religious community as theirs, that was a very terrifing thought.  
Of course everyone in the village found the brides of Dracula the most regal and beautiful women ever seen, but their merciless, playfully cruel and almost animalistic behaviour during their incursions was more than enough to keep the villagers from falling for their beauty.  
Not that the vampires cared, since their hearts belonged to each others and, obviously, to their creator, Dracula.  
The count himself, Anna had to admit, was an handsome man, with his black hair always done in a regal style and his beautiful blue eyes. But after all the things he had done to her family in the past centuries the princess had never considered him anything more that a monster, and she hated him with all her heart, as she hated his brides, his accomplices in every suffering he had caused.  
But she wasn't blind, and she could objectively admit that those creature of the night, those tempting servants of the Evil, were indeed very beautiful, as beautiful as a guilty pleasures could be.  
But there was a big difference between knowing such a thing as a fact, a part of the dangerous reality they lived in, and admitting it to herself there, in the depths of a dark forest, alone with the very same subject of her thoughts; especially if that same subject she intended to turn away from her.  
Anna was scared of the admission also for another reason: thinking that the vampire was sexy was a thing that implied lust, and that she couldn't really controll nor help it. But thinking that she was beautiful? Well, that sounded very different: more pure, affectionate, deeper than simple lust. Especially since the feeling was accentuated by the fact that she was actually getting to know her travel mate and, like, really spending time in her company and enjoying it.  
And one thing was hoping for better, undefined changes between the two of them, a totally different one was thinking about the vampire in that totally blasphemous, wrong, forbidden way, and so clearly even!  
No, she preferred so much more to deal with unclear, undefined, wild emotions, which could actually allow her to lie to herself about her sinful thoughts. They could also allow her a so craved peace of mind, since questioning them would lead to nothing, on the contrary of clear and defined thoughts as the one she had just had, which would automatically leading her to a lot of questions.  
Questions she didn't want to ponder on, because she was afraid that when she ever found the answers, those would be the wrong ones.  
Because that would mean that those monsters had indeed succeeded in making her fall under their spell. That's what scared her the most, because if so, her very immortal soul would have been at risk, and she couldn't, wouldn't have risked her salvation. Moreover not for the monsters that had condemned generations of her family to wander into the Purgatory.  
Anna clenched her fists as all those thoughts ran wild into her mind.  
She must have been staring at the vampire for quite some time, because Aleera tilted her head and smiled seductively, as her eyes flashed purple and looked up and down the princess' body "What is it, Anna? See something you like?"  
The vampire's intent was to enlighten the mood, to break the tension starting what she expected to be a good, healthy banter. But, not knowing what was bothering the princess' mind, she couldn't know how that hadn't been the best strategy either.  
That sentence, along with the innatural eyes of the vampire looking at her as if she was a delicious snack, took immediately Anna back to the present.  
The princess would have blushed if furious rage hadn't flared up inside of her. Rage at herself for thoughts that scared her, rage at the vampire, who was the very source of those thoughts, and rage both because the creature didn't take anything seriously and because she continuosly tried to tempt her soul to the darkness.  
Anna clenched her fists harder, making her knuckles blanch, trying to stop herself to take her silver stake and end the cause of all her troubles, which she couldn't, not right then at least.  
She remembered very well that when Marishka had died the other two brides had felt it, even if they weren't near her, and that had saved her life back then. But if she killed Aleera now, Dracula and Verona would have known that, and they could have assumed she had broken the truce. And her people would have become victims of their rage, without her there to try to protect them. And she couldn't allow that to happen. No, she wouldn't have risked the villagers' safety.  
She was a strong willed woman, not an easily impressionable girl, she could resist the redhead vampire's charm without doing something reckless, that she would have regretted later.  
She could and she would let her escort her for the rest of the journey and back to the village, and only after the werevolwes' emergency had been solved, only then she would have ended her spiritual troubles with a silver stake. And she would have felt great joy and satisfaction in doing it, at least as much as Aleera seemed to feel every single damned time she had ever played with her.  
Because that was what hurt the most, besides enraging Anna like nothing else: for the redhead that whole incredible mess was just a game, and because of that she wasn't really touched by any of it. She was just playing; it was not real.  
That conclusion hardened her resolution in keeping herself away from that devilish, tempting creature.  
So "The only thing I see is a puppet that is so afraid to disobey her precious master's orders that she can stay not even half a day without worrying about the cargo entrusted to her, even if it's absolutely not necessary" was the cold answer of the princess.  
Aleera blinked twice, caught off guard, and her smile disappeared.  
"The only thing I see" continued Anna, her confidence growing as the playfulness faded from the bride's face "is a very pathetic, superficial shadow of a human being, a monster that enjoys making other people's lives miserable because her own is so hollow that nothing else can fill it, but earthly, limited pleasures."  
The vampire's expression darkened, as the words hurt her far more than she had expected, and she lifted an hand to slap her, but then she stopped and gritted her teeth, frustrated. She had no desire to hit the princess, not anymore, even if she had just deeply offended her.  
Anna smiled mockingly and asked "What? Your precious master has also forbidden you to hurt me? Well, that must be frustrating, how will you survive behaving like a decent human being for a few days in your life?"  
Well that was a little unfair, considering that she had in fact behaved better than usual in the time they had spent together in their journey, not mentioning she had saved her life just the day before. But Anna didn't care in that moment, she only wanted the redhead gone from her sight.  
Aleera gritted her teeth and took a deep breath before answering "Why are you talking to me like this now?"  
The bride didn't deny the other woman's words, in part because those concerning her Master's orders were true, in part because she was too hurt right then to confess that it was herself the first one who didn't want to harm her ever again.  
Anna took a step forwards, taking her face very close to the redhead's one, and whispered "Because I despise you" a pause, then "And I don't want to have anything to do with you more than I have to for the sake of the mission and my people."  
They stood there, so close to each other, and yet so, so far away, just enough time for the gipsy's eyes to go from back and forths between the vampire's owns twice, making sure she knew her to be dead serious; then she stepped back and, without another word, turned around and walked away.  
Aleera didn't move a muscle; she couldn't. She just observed the princess mounting on her horse and resuming her hunt.  
The redhead didn't know if she was more stupefied by Anna's change of mood which happened in few hours, or by the pain her harsh words had inflicted on her, which was as deep as it was unexpected.  
Was that really what Anna thought about her? Did she really consider her nothing more than a puppet?  
Yes, she had a Master, and yes she was beyond loyal to Him, but that didn't mean she didn't have a personality, or that she always agreed to everything He said or order her. She realised how it might appear from the outside of their family, but theirs was a bond no one but vampires could ever even begin to understand. It was a very importan part of their world, that bond. And the fact that she and Verona were also their Master's brides made it even stronger. But it didn't reduce them to mindless puppets.  
They were many things to Him: servants, lovers, mates and, last but not least, family.  
They were supernatural beings, extraordinary creatures, and humans couldn't comprehend them or their costumes, because they were simply parts of another world, out of their reach.  
Aleera knew that, and she couldn't blame Anna for not understanding her nature, that was not what made her frown about all of that. She was puzzled because the outburst and the harsh words didn't make sense in that context. They were both fine that morning, as well as the previous evening. The redhead had even thought that the princess' attitude toward her had become considerably softer than before, so what had changed? She really couldn't find the reason behind it all, and not for lack of trying.  
The vampire sighed.  
That wouldn't have changed a thing from her part. Her orders were still the same, and despite whatever had gotten into Anna, Aleera's newly discovered feelings toward her hadn't changed, and they didn't seem willing to go anywhere.  
And, she had no intentions of giving up all the progress they had made at the first sign of troubles. No, she had known from the beginning that any kind of relationship with the human wouldn't have been easy, for too many reasons to think about, but she had dived in anyway. And, Aleera had never back down from a challenge before, she certainly wouldn't have started then.  
She would have followed Anna, made sure she was safe, looking after her without the human knowing, respecting her request. But, as soon as the princess stopped for the night, the vampire would have talked to her thoroughly, not letting her getting away. They would have solved this.  
Aleera nodded to herself, pleased, then, she jumped into a sky as black as her mood, and followed the other woman's steps.

Anna, on the other hand, was still prey of very conflicting emotions, which frustrated her to no end.  
She had hoped that finally acting on her decision to get away from the vampire would have stopped her internal turmoil, but damn if she had she been wrong.  
The princess couldn't stopthinking about the hurted expression of the redhead at her harsh words, that apparently had surprised her so much that she didn't succeed in hiding her emotions. And that said something, since the vampire always seemed to keep herself under controll.  
A part of the gipsy kept telling her that maybe she had been a little too harsh, that she didn't really think those things, not with the previous extent anyway, but another part of her was saying that she had made the right choice, because she couldn't let the vampire come closer, or her soul would have been damned for all the eternity.  
Essentially, a part of her wanted to remain in the light of God, doing what was right for her people, her family and her eternal soul, while another part of her desperately wanted to feel the scary sensation of the risk, to be free from all her duties, and, mostly, to live fully for once, without worries of what people would think or if she was disappointing her family, or if she was condemning her eternal life for something she couldn't controll.  
And the redhead vampire was the main reason for which the latter part of herself was trying so much harder than usual to be heard from her.  
But there was always the fact that she wasn't convinced to risk all her life's efforts for something that would surely be amazing, but in the practice it probably didn't even exist, as Aleera's words had confirmed just an hour prior. So she wouldn't take the chance to change her life, not for her. It was the right choice, and Anna knew that.  
But why then was it so hard to let go?  
The princess was so caught up in her own thoughts that she didn't realise to have finally arrived very close to her destination.  
A strong stench of wet dog and rotting flesh was all it took to bring her back to reality.  
Anna unsheated her gun, caressing her horse to calm it, dismounted and looked around. Realising where she was thanks to the bandit's indications, she headed forwards and, until the trees stopped and a wide clearing opened before her. And there was those outlaws' former camp, or what remained of it.  
It was composed by at least fifteen wooden cabins, a stable and the remainings of a deposit, so the gipsy supposed it originally was a woodcutters' camp. But then it was clear that it hadn't been used by them from a long time. The deposit was in ruins, and even if the rest of the buildings seemed in decent conditions, the rest of the clearing was in caos. Too many signs of claws on the ground to count, rotting bodies so disfigured that it was hard to tell they were human and, to the princess' horror, many different furs scattered between the huts.  
The werewolves were there, turned because of the phases of the moon, and they were all asleep, which made sense, since, like the vampires, they were mostly nocturnal creatures.  
The gipsy had never seen so many turned werewolves together in the same space in her life, and she surely hope not to repeat the experience again. Still, she forced herself to stay calm, and quickly counted them; those she could see were twenty five, but she had no doubts that there were more nearby, maybe asleep, maybe not. She was lucky to be upper hand, but her luck wouldn't have lasted forever, and that was exactly why she should have left.  
And Anna did, careful not to make any noise that could reach their sensitive ears.  
When she arrived back to her mount, she took the reins and guided it away by foot, not trusting the animal to be silent enough.  
Then a loud rustling of leaves behind her caught her attention, and she froze on the spot. Slowly, very slowly, she turned around.

And up there on a tree, a pair of wild, yellow eyes returned her gaze.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So what do you think?


	8. The confrontation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi!  
> Sorry for the long wait, I was a bit unsure about this chapter; anyway, enjoy!

Anna tried really hard not to scream or panic.  
Instead, she dropped the horse's reins and slapped it on the rear, and the animal run away without any further solicitation.  
The werewolf snarled at the gesture, and its yellow eyes followed the fleeing steed for a moment but, as soon as the princess started to slowly step back from it, the monster's gaze came back to her.  
Anna quickly reflected: if she ran away, the beast would have just jumped in front of her, cutting her retreat and eliminating the distance between them in one shot; if she fired at it, there was a possibility to kill or seriously injure it, but on the other hand there was the certainty that the other werewolves would have woken up and come for her. And she surely wouldn't have survived such an encounter.  
So what could she do?  
The gipsy kept stepping back slowly, trying not to anger the beast, which was still perched on the tree, watching her.  
Then she remembered her silver knife, and her left hand found its handle. The gesture didn't give her any hope though: she knew that even if it was certainly a quiet weapon, it couldn't do much against a monster that might. And she had to survive it before thinking about surviving its mates. Still, it was better than nothing.  
If she played her cards right, there was actually a tiny chance to kill it, but it was very tiny and very, very risky. It was that or nothing though, so she readied herself.  
That was the moment the werewolf decided it was tired of waiting, so it roared and jumped at her, sharp claws tensed before itself.  
Anna didn't even had the time to unsheathe her knife that the collision happened, and, thanks to adrenaline, time seemed to slow down, allowing her to catch everything that happened in the frenetic, following instants.  
Firstly, it wasn't the body she had expected the one that hit her hard.  
Another one, smaller but still very muscular, impacted hers by the side at high speed, taking her away from the beast's claws and shielding her from them. A bat shaped body.  
The princess yelped, surprised, when Aleera engulfed her in her arms, her onrush moving them from the werewolf's range of attack, and the monster, surprised as well by the vampire's sudden apparition, landed hard against a tree, breaking it down.  
Secondly, Anna's ears registered a whine, and a hot liquid reached the hands she had instinctively sneaked around the redhead's waist; the princess didn't need to see it to know it was blood, and worry for the vampire's health immediately filled her body.  
She couldn't linger on that though, because the kept moving through the air, and they weren't out of troubles yet.  
Aleera twisted into the air, tightening her grip on the princess, and widened her wings to stabilize them and gain controll on their flight.  
On instinct, Anna planted her nails in the vampire's skin, which normally the redhead wouldn't have minded, or, in other, very differen and more pleasant circumstances, would have actually quite appreciated, but that wasn't the case.  
The vampire hissed when the princess' fingers accidentally found the wounds the werewolf had just inflicted on her body.  
Those same wounds extended for more than the redhead had originally thought, since not only her right wing, but her hip and a great part of her back as well had exploded in pain when she had widened her wings. That didn't allow her to gain the height she wanted, instead she lost it even more quickly. So she brought her legs forwards, clawed fingers widening in preparation to the impact with the ground. Her bat like feet weren't made for hard landings, but the redhead somehow managed to do so and readily started running without losing her rush, wings still trying to lift them both.  
Anna embraced the vampire more tightly, trying not to be in the way, and took the chance to look beyond the redhead's back. She widened her eyes when she saw that the werewolf hadn't lost any time and followed them as soon as it had been on his feet again. And the worst thing was that the beast wasn't that far away behind them at all; it was running as fast as it could, the thought of catching two preys instead of one exciting and giving strenght to it.  
But they were not its preys, and Anna had no intentions of becoming one.  
The princess moved an arm away from the vampire's neck, and tried to grab her gun.  
Aleera didn't like the change of balance though, and she made it known by shouting "Stay still!"  
To wich Anna shouted back "Take off! Fly away!"  
The vampire actually growled, both in frustration, and for the effort of keeping them from what would have been a spectacular but very hard fall to the ground AND in the meantime trying not to let the werewolf catch them, and asnwered "I'm trying!"  
Then she growled again and jumped up, her clawed feet destroying the ground so much was the force she had put in the push. She beated her wings more vigorously, but the damaged one was still failing her, and the vampire couldn't take off as smoothly as she had intended to.  
"Hold on tight Anna!" The redhead shouted again, and a moment later the princess screamed in surprise as the arms which were embracing her suddendly left her body.  
Luckily the gipsy was already holding on the vampire, or she doubted that her reflexes would have been fast enough to follow the order. Still, she had only one arm around Aleera's neck, which wasn't much. The gipsy had never thanked her hard training enough as in that moment, as her limb stood in place without much troubles. Still, with a upsurge of abs, she brought her thighs around the vampire's waist as well.  
Then Anna opened her mouth to protest at the sudden action and to question the motivation behind it, when she noticed that Aleera was using her clawed hands on the trees and their branches to help herself up, since her wings' push wasn't sufficient, and she closed her mouth.  
Instead, she brought her attention back to the werewolf, knowing very well that its kind could climb trees easely. In fact not a moment later it jumped up, attatching to the bark of the plants and following them quickly. Too much quickly for Anna's tastes.  
The princess didn't lose any time: she unsheathed her gun, pointed it at the werewolf and fired.  
The bullet reached its shoulder, and the beast howled in pain when the silver burned its flesh. That slowed it down, but didn't stop its hunt, so Anna took the aim and fired again, hitting its chest this time. The following howl was higher than the previous one, and the werewolf fell to the ground with a great noise.  
Anna smiled and brought her attention back to the redhead.  
Despite the obvious lack of the usual fluidity and speed in her movements, she had already carried them to the highest branches of the tree they were climbing.  
Once on top, the vampire crouched for a moment, looking at the surrounding darkness. Her gaze seemed to find the fallen werewolf, because she commented "Good shots."  
Anna leaned down, trying to see the beast, and, not succeeding, she asked "Is it down there?"  
"Yes, and it won't get back up" the princess could hear the smile in her voice, but a moment later it turned serious, when she continued "The others aren't far away though, and they are coming for us. We need to leave."  
The princess sheathed her gun and put her arm back around the redhead's neck, asking "Can you make it back to the cavern from here?"  
The vampire gritted her teeth "I have to. Hold on."  
And then she launched into the dark sky, wings wide open, finally able, thanks to the trees' height, to take off decently.  
Anna tightened her hold on Aleera's body, since the bride's arms didn't return to embrace her own. The princess secretly missed the contact, but didn't ask for it, seeing that the vampire was keeping her arms wide open as well under her wings to keep the balance and stabilize them.  
Now that she could pay attention, Anna noticed that the noise of beat that was accompaining their flight was strange, and that one of the wings didn't seem able to provide the necessary push as usual. The princess wanted to look better at it, as well as at the redhead's back, since part of her left thigh was completely soaked by what she feared to aknowledge as blood, but if she did, she would have created problems to the vampire. So she forced herself to be patient and to enjoy the closeness with the redhead until it lasted, putting aside all the thoughts that shouted at her how wrong it was.

Aleera, conscious about the danger, pushed herself very hard, and they arrived at the cavern way before Anna had expected them to.  
The landing was abrupt and graceless, and the redhead instincitvely grabbed Anna's waist to stabilize them as soon as her feet touched the ground, but then, remembering the tense situation between them, she immediately let her go and took a step back.  
The princess grabbed the vampire's arms as well though, to sustain her, and said "Careful, you are hurt. Lay down and let me see your wounds."  
"It's nothing" Aleera murmured, stepping back from her, but she laid down on her belly nonetheless.  
Anna winced and took an hand to her mouth in horror at the sight of her injuries.  
Deep claws' signs went from the middle of her right wing to her hip. The delicate flesh of her wing was lacerated, shreds of thin skin were clearly missing, others laid insensible on the ground. No wonder the take off and the following flight had been so difficult. Even a great part of her back had been marked by deep cuts, and the princess couldn't help but notice how the vampire's bat like feet's fingers were subconsciously opening and closing convulsively for the pain.  
The worst thing was that none of the wounds was healing, and the redhead had lost and kept losing a lot of blood.  
Anna swallowed hard and asked, her voice high and almost hysterical "You call this nothing? Your wing is into shreds, and your back is all lacerated! And you are not even healing!"  
The princess, despite herself, was very scared. She had never seen Aleera being hurt like that before, and so she wasn't used in seeing her that vulnerable, and neither in such pain. And her condition was her fault. It was all her fault. If she hadn't been so damn scared and in conflict with herself, all of that would have never happened.  
"It's nothing blood can't solve" the vampired murmured between gritted teeth, her clawed hands scraping the cavern's rocky ground, in an involuntary contrast with her calm and detached voice.  
The sentence brought an immediate sense of relief in Anna though, and she didn't even think before she exclaimed "Of course!"  
She quickly grabbed her knife and put it on her forearm, ready to cut it, but a grey clawed hand grabbed her arm in turn with incredible gentleness, stopping her.  
"What are you doing?" The vampire asked, still not looking at her, her eyes closed in the effort to contain the pain she was in.  
The princess took the hand holding her away gently "I'm giving you my blood."  
But Aleera shook her head, slowly lifting her torso from the ground with her arms, turning into her human form in the process, and murmured "I don't want it."  
The transformation didn't alleviate Anna's worry at all: yes, the damage at her wing didn't seem that bad afterwards, since then it was a piece of clothing that was sliced into shreds, and not living skin, but that was the only positive thing.  
The vampire's complex was so pale, so much more so than usual, and it didn't contrast only with the red of her fire like wild hair, but also with the one of the big stain of blood expanding on her clear clothes.  
The princess' gaze followed the rivulets of still fresh blood running down the redhead's back, her beautiful thigh, her toned calf, till the golden anklet she wore.  
In other circumstances the gipsy's breath would have been taken away by the amount of skin her traitorous eyes were staring at so freely, shamelessly and without having to worry about being caught, but in that moment the only thing that was making her breathless was a great amount of worry.  
"Well, I'm sorry but I'm not taking no for an answer. It's my fault if you are hurt, so at least let me try to remedy for all I can" that said, before the redhead could protest, she opened a cut on her forearm and, knowing well that the redhead couldn't resist, she added "Here, take as much as you need" and leaned her arm toward her.  
The change in the vampire was immediate: her eyes turned purple and her canines grew with need.  
Aleera hesitated though, and met the princess' gaze with her own, conflicted.  
Anna appreciated it, so she smiled and told her softly "It's okay, drink it."  
The redhead resisted another moment and then, with a resignated grimace, she delicately took her wrist and started drinking from it. Just like the first time, the vampire took care in gathering every single drop of blood around the cut with her tongue, savouring it calmly, and only after that she started sucking directly from the fresh wound slowly, moaning for the wonderful sensation. Unlike the first time though, the redhead drank slowly, and didn't let the bloodthirst dominate her, which usually would have taken her quite the effort, but that time it didn't.  
Unbeknownst to the princess, in fact, Aleera really didn't want her blood, not after what the woman had said to her just a few hours prior. She didn't want the gipsy to think that she actually was a puppet, commanded only and completely by her Master and her instincts. But she could not fight her nature, not with blood that delicious so near and offered to her that way, and especially not with wounds like those. Her whole body was aching for the need to be filled again with the life essence which that sacred liquid inherently was, and start healing once again.  
Besides, the princess seemed to actually be okay with that, and her eyes, her attitude, her voice, weren't cold toward her anymore, not like before, and her entire being seemed to express only worry, and there was just one person toward which it could be directed right then.  
That was the main reason for which she finally let go and accept the blood she was being offered, for once feeling warm inside before the first drop of it could even touch her lips.  
Anna, on the other hand, kept checking the claws' marks on the redhead's back, not caring in the slightest about anything else but the vampire's wellbeing, even if the way her skin tingled pleasantly in contact with Aleera's was quite distracting. After a few moments, not satisfied with the results, she couldn't stay quiet anymore "They are not healing!"  
The vampire took her lips away from the princess' forearm just for the minimum time she needed to answer "It will take a little more time than this."  
Anna shook her head, frustrated, and murmured "Why?"  
This time the redhead didn't stop her drinking to answer though, and kept sucking her warm blood with a calculated slowness, hoping not to aggravate the woman's conditions like she had the time before.  
The princess pressed her lips together, annoyed at the lack of answer, and her worried gaze came back to the wounds.  
That was the second time her travel mate's body hadn't healed as fast as it used to. And Anna had witnessed that curious fact only once before and in those days they had spent together, while never before in her life she had heard about such a thing.  
What was the connection? Why were those injuries taking more time to heal? What was the difference with the others which the princess and her sworn men had always inflicted to the vampire?  
And then it hit Anna: those wounds had been caused by a werewolf.  
That was the only difference and the only common factor with the others. But could it actually be it?  
The princess blinked twice, pondering the possibilities. She had never heard about nor considered such a thing possible, because for centuries all the werewolves bitten and turned in Dracula's territory had been at the count's orders. But these ones? They were free, out of his controll, and they probably liked it that way. That was the only reason for which she had had the possibility to witness the effects of their blows to the vampires.  
Thinking about it, that explained everything: why the brides had actually stopped to talk to her about the new threat without killing anyone that day at the village, why they had seemed so worried when usually none of their miserable human problems touched them, why the count had accepted the truce so easily and why he had sent Aleera with her. Well, the part of why Dracula wanted her alive and well so much to send one of his brides to protect her was still unclear, but that didn't matter right then. All that mattered was her discovery, and if she was right or not. She highly doubted to be mistaken though: too many things were explained by her theory.  
Anna took her gaze back to the vampire and asked slowly "They are another thing that can hurt and even kill your kind, aren't they?"  
Aleera suddendly stopped drinking right then.  
Slowly, very slowly, she lifted her head to meet the princess' gaze, her whole body tense, waiting.  
The gipsy's eyes went to the stain of blood on the vampire's lips that she did not care to lick away, then back and forth between the redhead's ones twice before adding in a whisper "The werewolves."  
If possible, the vampire froze even more. Only her purple eyes seemed alive, searching in Anna's ones for something, trying to read and figure out the reasonings behind her rhetorical question and how much she believed in what she had just affirmed.  
And Aleera didn't like the confidence, the convinction of being right that shone through her gaze, but she wasn't surprised: it was inevitable. The princess was an intelligent woman after all, and she had seen too much not to have connected the two things. Hell, the redhead was surprised she hadn't figured that out sooner.  
Anyway, she knew there was no point trying to deny it, so she just sighed deeply and answered "Yes. They are our natural enemies."  
Then she looked at the open wound for a moment but made no attempt to resume drinking; she just diverted her gaze, a little unsatisfied grimace on her lips, and caressed the cut on her princess' forearm with her thumb absentmindedly.  
Anna, on the other hand, was astonished. Not only the vampire had confirmed her theory and not lied or tried to deny it, but more importantly her previous gesture had suddendly gained so much more meaning than before. The vampire had saved her risking her own life in the process, and the risk had been real, very dangerous and possibly mortal. And she had still done it, even after all the horrible things the princess had said her just a few hours prior.  
Maybe she had judged her a little too harshly, because the gipsy couldn't see a single reason why she had risked so much to save her, when her own utility had run out ever since they had come so close to the werewolves' dent. In fact, seen that the redhead had followed her to it and so discovered its location, she could have just let the beast kill her, and their Valerious' problem would have been solved. That would have been what the gipsy had expected her to do, but the vampire had surprised her. And if the gesture was all a part of an hidden plot, well, the princess really couldn't figure out what could it be.  
So, basically, Anna was overwhelmed and very, very grateful, not to mention positively surprised, but most of all, very much overwhelmed.  
Before she could stop herself, with a firm movement, she leaned her hand on the redhead's cheek and lifted her face, wanting, no, needing to see her eyes again.  
And when Aleera met her gaze with her own, puzzled at the gesture and at the almost intimate touch, the princess studied her, seeing the other woman in a totally new, different light.  
Those eyes, purple and so inhuman, had always seemed to mock her, to challenge her, to try and succeed in unsettling her, and the Valerious had always hated them. She hated how they had haunted her effortlessly both in her nightmares and, sometimes, even in her more pleasants dreams, scaring and confusing her, making her feel dirty and blasphemous and wrong. She had forced herself to bury and forget those episodes and, when she couldn't, she used them to increase her hate toward the redhead vampire even more, not considering or choosing not to see that hate is only one face of a two faced coin.  
And right then in that moment, Anna could almost feel that same coin twisting in the air and finally flipping to the other side, letting her see its other face, covered and ignored for too long.  
The princess looked into those eyes and found them beautiful, mysterious and complicated. They were no longer looking at her as if they saw just another meal, another toy to play with or another prey to slay. No, they were studying her carefully, returning the intensity of the gipsy's owns, and patiently trying to read her, to understand her.  
And then Anna realised how that she had seen that kind of gaze before, on countless, brief occasions. An instant here and one there of searching looks before or between their fights, sometimes accompanied by a tilt of her red crown or elegant furrowed eyebrows, small, almost imperceptible gestures that the princess had always noticed but shrugged off that were then coming back into her mind. Gesture that seen in the light of the recent events made her realize that maybe, just maybe, the vampire had always cared, or if not that, she had always seen her as something more that a mere source of life.  
She couldn't be sure about the past, but there was no mistaking that look she was receiving right then.  
Those purple eyes were at their most human right then, open, vulnerable, and honest. They were telling her that yes, she really was something more.  
Anna felt her own heartbeat to quicken at the knowledge, and her gaze moved down on its own, finding the redhead's full lips.  
For a moment, an unique moment of bravery, the princess asked herself what it would have been like to kiss the vampire, and she let her mind wander free to find the answer.  
It would have been the first time for her to kiss a woman, as she had never even consider to think such a thing. Well, not until the redhead anyway, and it wasn't like she could have done with her, then, could she?  
She didn't linger on that thought though, instead she tried to imagine how different it would have been from kissing a man; softer and more gentle, probably. She had no doubt about the soft part, since she had felt on her own skin the softness of the redhead's lips, and that only on her arm's flesh, so she could just imagine how it would have been to feel it on her own lips. And as for the gentleness, that actually made her wonder, because even if in their past encounters the other woman had been anything but gentle with her, in those days that had changed too. Aleera had showed a side of her that the princess would have never suspected to exist, a side that had made all her walls melt like the fact that she had spent years of suffering to built them meant nothing. And the truth was that in moments like those the gipsy couldn't bring herself to mind it, even if her mind was screaming to her to.  
Then, Anna's gaze found the stain of blood that was still there, unperturbed, and her canines, long enough to nip her bottom lip lightly. And the princess asked herself how it would have been to taste her own blood in her mouth, and to feel those sharp teeth against her lips. Would have she minded or found it even more alluring?  
She actually wasn't so sure anymore.  
In the meantime, Aleera remained still on the spot, looking at the princess carefully, letting her study her as much and for as long as she wanted, without saying or doing anything to interrupt her. She could tell that the princess was looking for something, and she had no intention to hide what she was feeling for her. She had accepted it and made her peace with it, so no point in hiding it to the princess, and the sooner the other woman would have known and accepted it as well, the better. Because even if what happened that afternoon had made her doubt the gipsy's feeling toward her, well, her following behaviour had made her previous convintion even stronger.  
Seeing Anna looking at her that way, with such intensity and thoughtfulness, as if she was trying to reach the real her made her feel very exposed, but also very willing to open herself to her more.  
Because, well, firstly it was good to see someone trying to really see her like they cared. Someone who didn't search for the vampire, the bride or the monster, but for the woman, for Aleera herself. She didn't get that often, not even from her family, and she wasn't used to be seen as just herself anymore, so she had stopped trying to be seen as herself. She had just went along playing her part until she herself had become it. So seeing Anna trying to tear those masks away to reach the person below, well. It was new and strange and exhilarating. And it made her question a lot of things, things she would have preferred to leave alone and went on with her life without a care in the world, which apparently wasn't the gipsy's plan for her.

(And it absolutely wasn't like it all made her fall harder for the princess, no, not at all.  
(Falling where, then, if it meant deeper into troubles or into the greatest adventure of her life she didn't know yet.  
(Not that one thing excluded the other, thinking about it.)))

And secondly because she knew that the princess needed that, she could feel it, even if she couldn't explain it. Furthermore, the woman didn't seem in the same state of mind in which she was when she had assaulted her with harsh words; she seemed calmer, more relaxed and more composed, so the redhead found it unlikely to be hurt again by her. Not right then at least, so she let her search for whatever she needed to find.  
Then Aleera saw the princess' eyes moving on her lips, and she froze even more.  
The intensity in her gaze hadn't diminished, instead it only seemed to grow more and more, until the redhead felt like the gipsy was devouring her lips with her stare alone. Watching her more carefully, then, the vampire noticed how her pupils were slightly more dilatated, her breath a little shorter and her heartbeat a little faster than before.  
Suddendly the hand on her cheek gained a totally different meaning, and the redhead's own gaze fell on the other woman's lips. She had wanted to taste them for so long, and then it seemed that she didn't have to wait for it anymore. All she had to do was lean forwards and capture them with her owns. They were already so close to each others, and judging by the desire in the princess' eyes, the vampire was sure she wouldn't be rejected if she tried.  
The temptation was really strong.  
But that wasn't about her. The redhead had accepted her feelings and, even if she probably should be, she wasn't upset or worried or scared of them. She was a vampire, one of Dracula's brides, and that fact alone had allowed her to open her mind and accept all the kinds of love and pleasure indiscriminately. So she didn't mind at all to feel that way about a person who was both a woman, an enemy and an human.  
Sure as hell it wasn't the same for said woman though.  
Anna had lived in a christian community all her life, and grown up in a family that was both very religious and extremely ethic and sworn to duty. So how could the redhead expect her to accept those kind of feeling toward her and act on them straight away? Hell, she probably hadn't even accepted or aknowledge them yet.  
So no, she wouldn't have been the one to take the first step.  
She would have, if she had felt only lust for the princess, and she would have ages before, but that wasn't the case.  
Since she seemed to have real feelings for her, though, she just couldn't do what pleased her ignoring Anna's needs and her feelings; she cared too much for her to do so. The funny thing was that the redhead herself hadn't realised how much before her last second's rescue.  
That spontaneous action had surprised her too, but she felt happy about it, about having the princess before her right then, alive and safe. And she was so relieved that she was willing to move on from the hurtful words of the other woman, but she knew she couldn't. First she needed to know if the princess really meant them, and if she really thought those things about her. Because that implied that the gipsy didn't trust her, not completely at least. And as much as the vampire could be hurt about it, well, she understood. That only meant she would have work relentlessly to make the princess realize that she could actually trust her. That was crucial for an hypothetical, future change in their relationship.  
And, always for the sake of it, she knew she had to let Anna be the one who set the pace of whatever they were or wherever they went, if she wanted them to be able to go somewhere at all. And, to her own surprise, she did want them to, very much so.  
All the problems that would have come with her family and the princess' would have been taken in consideration later, since only thinking about them succeeded in giving her an headache. Furthermore right then she had to be there for the other woman.  
So no matter how much she wanted to do the opposite, Aleera stood still, waiting for the princess' move.  
And Anna, no matter how much she herself wanted to lean in and taste the redhead's lips, took a deep breath and leant back, closing her eyes. She needed to talk to the vampire before doing anything she could have regretted later. So after another moment she reopened her eyes, finding the purple ones of the bride again, and whispered, soft and grateful "Thank you."  
Aleera's gaze went from her orbs to her lips and back up, then she wishpered back "For what?"  
The princess smiled and her thumb caressed the vampire's pale cheeck "For saving my life risking yours."  
At that, the redhead smiled back, a soft, little smile, with no teeth in sight for the very first time since they had met, and answered "You are welcome."  
Then the vampire blinked, and just like that, she was all human again, and Anna lost herself for a few moments in her hazel eyes, so similar to her owns, and so beautiful.  
When she managed to look away from those captivating orbs, her gaze contemplated the redhead's face, and she found with a good amount of surprise the blush adorning the cheek her thumb was still caressing. She stopped the movement and noticed that the vampire's complex wasn't so pale anymore, so she asked "Are you feeling better?"  
Aleera nodded without adverting her intense gaze from the woman in front of her, making her blush slightly at the heated stare.  
The princess cleared her throat and asked, uncertain and a little embarassed "Let me see?"  
At that the vampire rolled her eyes in exhasperation, secretly loving the worry though, and turned around.  
The blood stain had in fact disappeared from her clothing, same as the worst damages, for what Anna could see. The redhead's skin was red in some points, and when the princess touched it with her hand without thinking, she felt some irregularities on the usually perfect flesh. What she didn't feel was the shiver that run down the vampire's body at her caress.  
The princess raised her eyebrows and asked, astonished "Are these scars? Will you have them for the rest of your life?"  
Aleera scoffed and answered "Don't be silly. They only will take more time to heal completely."  
She didn't sound one hundred certain though, and not even too pleased about it, which was understandable, since, if they remained, the scars would have disfigured a great part of her back, ruining her previously perfect skin.  
Anna got it, and she felt even more grateful for her sacrifice, so she caressed the marks with a more meaningful gesture, and repeated "Thank you."  
The redhead appreciated it, and didn't move away from her touch, but didn't look at her when she answered "Don't worry, they will go away. No need to feel guilty or thank me more for that."  
But the princess didn't think so, and, with regret, she moved in front of the vampire, stopping her caresses, and looked at her right in the eyes when she said "Actually I need to. Especially after what I said to you this afternoon."  
And there it was, the discussion neither of them wanted to have but both of them needed to.  
Aleera sighed deeply, gathering all her courage, and lifted her gaze, meeting the other woman's own. She didn't want to let her see how much she was hurt by what she had said, not yet, she was scared to, but she didn't want to hide anything either. So she settled for a carefully neutral face, and a sligtly lifted eyebrow, to show her that she was listening, and inviting her to continue. She had nothing to say after all.  
Anna sighed as well, praying to succeed in saying all the things she had to, and started "I owe you an apology."  
That only made the vampire lifting her eyebrow a little more, to which the princess would have rolled her eyes if the situation had been lighter, which it wasn't.  
Still, she didn't let the lack of response discourage her "I do. I'm sorry for what I said earlier, that was uncalled for and unfair to you."  
Aleera slightly tilted her head, then asked, her tone as unreadable as her expression "Do you really think those things of me? Do you despise me?"  
"No!" Anna answered a bit too quickly, her voice high, then she cleared her throat and continued, more calmly "No, I don't despise you. Well, I did when I first met you, as I still do for Dracula and Verona but…not you, not anymore, not after these days spent together and definitely not after you saved me risking your life in the process."  
The redhead's face softened a bit at her answer, but her voice and her eyes remained guarded as she asked "You still think I'm a puppet though, don't you?"  
The following silence and the princess' slight embarassed face were the best answer she could ever get, and the vampire stood up to gain a needed physical distance from the princess, sighing and adverting her gaze in an attempt to mask her hurt and breathed out deeply to ignore the disappointment in her chest and the itching behind her eyes (which was totally ridiculous, because she was a grown woman and a vampire so she wouldn't have cried for it, she wouldn't) and murmured an harsh "Right."  
At that Anna stood up as well and took a step forward "Well, can you blame me? You always refer to Dracula as your "master", and you do everything he asks, no, he orders you without even blinking."  
Aleera looked at her right in the eyes when she asked in return "Do you think he would have ordered me to risk my own life to save yours?"  
That made the princess think for a moment before answering "No, I don't think so. I don't think this truce is that important to him, or that my people's survival is that vital to him to risk one of his precious bride's life for it, even if I can be so sure about the later, all considering.."  
She couldn't continue because the redhead harshly interrupted her, half closing her eyes "Are you mocking me and Verona as His brides? Or His love for us?"  
Anna hesitated; she hadn't realised to have used a sarcastic tone in referring to them while talking. Was she mocking them? Maybe. It's not like she didn't think that the loyalty those two women have proven toward the count was both too much and misplaced.  
That was not the point she wanted the discussion to be focussed on though, but seeing the glare she was receiving by the vampire, she realized she probably had to close it before she could move on, so she reluctantly said "Well, if I was indeed, not you two personally but rather your "role". And as for the authenticity of his "love", well, he had three of you brides before Marishka died, so he didn't exactly strike me for the romantic.."  
But Aleera's gaze heated in anger even more when she interrupted her again "That doesn't mean he didn't love all of us the same, and still does" she shook her head and threw her hands up in frustration, adding "You can't understand the bond between us, Anna, because you are not a vampire, and you are not part of the family. Because that's exactly what we are: a family. And we love every part of it, meaning Him or other brides, that doesn't make any difference, it neved had and it never will."  
The princess lifted both her hands in a placating gesture, inviting the other woman to calm down.  
She had contrasting* feelings about their "family": horror regarding their entire concept of marriage, curiosity, arousal, despite of herself, at the thought of what they did behind the closed doors of their castle, hate toward the members of said family, envy for their freedom and jealousy. This last one concerned the redhead vampire who had succeeded in making her lose her mind of course.  
She didn't like to admit it, but she couldn't deny at that point that she was jealous of her.  
Jealous of the time they got to spend with her, of that famous supernatural bond they shared, and the fact that the same redhead had just told her that she couldn't even begin to understand it made her even more jealous and angry too. And last but not least, two more points: she had a burning jealousy for the things she knew they got to do with and to her, to be at the receiving end of not only heated gazes, like her, but also hungry kisses and passionate caresses too. Knowing that they were able to hear her moans of pleasure and even cause them made her blood boil with merciless and burning jealousy. And of course, seeing with her own eyes how fiercely the redhead was ready to defend them made her so so jealous, and so much angry, but also incredibly sad.  
She hated the vampire for a moment, she hated how she had broken their bubble of isolation and brought them back to a reality where hoping for something more meant not only overcome her own personal issues on the matter, but also confronting with the fact that the redhead was a vampire married to other two and that she loved her family and would always put her precious Master above everything else.  
That was no little obstacle, and it sucked.  
It sucked so very much, because after everything they had been through, Anna couldn't for the life of hers wipe that hope for something more away from her mind and her heart; it was too late for that.  
Anna sighed and said "I didn't mean to upset you, and that's not the point I wanted to focus on" when the redhead huffed, annoyed, but didn't interrupt her again, she went on "As I was saying, I think about your rescue as the most genuine and spontaneous gesture you had done toward me in all the journey. So no, I don't think you had saved me risking your life because Dracula asked you too" a pause, and then "Also because I can't find a motivation solid enough for him to do so."  
Aleera diverted her gaze for a moment, knowing too well that her Master did actually have said solid reason to want the woman alive, then asked "But you still think that everything else I have done in these days is fake, that I was only following orders?"  
The princess looked at her a few moments, pondering on the answer before giving it "Honestly, I don't know."  
That surprised both of them; Anna because she had just realised that the little but meaningful acts of kindness, the light conversations and the pleasant atmosphere couldn't have been all fake, they just couldn't, she felt it into her heart, and Aleera because that meant there was still hope to build something there, was it even just more trust.  
Anna swallowed, then said slowly "I…would like to trust that you were being genuine with me these days. You managed to make this suicidal journey not so bad, between your protection and your company, but…"  
"You still don't trust me" the vampire concluded.  
The princess made a gesture of impotence with her hands, and answered "How can I? And why should I? In a few days, maybe even less this little distraction of ours will be blown away, so why should I pass over centuries of fights and distrust when it will all be for nothing? What would be the sense of it?"  
The redhead took a step forwards, capturing her gaze and murmured "I can't tell you what to do, that's your choice. What I can tell you is that I don't usually ponder on things a hundred times before acting; most of the times I just act, consequenses be damned, and follow my guts, my desires, my heart."  
Aleera stepped closer to the princess, relieved to see that she didn't pull away from her, even if she did tense a bit. To dull the tension, she added with a wink "It always knows."  
At that Anna chuckled, but it was bitter and fake, and asked "Does it?"  
She sighed and took some steps to the side, slightly gaining more distance from the redhead, and added "Well, yours is a style of life I couldn't afford, since one little mistake can get me killed and my whole family damned forever, so…you'll excuse me if I prefer to ponder on things a thousand times over before acting."  
Aleera slightly tilted her head in a conceding gesture, before coming closer again and talking back slowly "That's fair, princess, but be careful: just some thoughts more and you'll lose the best years of your life closed off in that mind of yours."  
The vampire looked at her a few moments more, to make sure the other woman knew she was serious, then let go and broke the stare, walking around in the cave as if she owned the place, silently putting away for later the matter of the Valerious' "cursed" family; it clearly was a factor that influenced a lot the gipsy's life and her decisions, so the redhead had to keep it in high consideration as well.  
When she turned toward the princess again, she wasn't so surprised to see her in the same exact position as before, looking like she had received a punch in the guts. She had been right to think that was a sore point. She really didn't wanto to classify it as a weakness she could have eventually used at her advantage to convince the gipsy in taking a chance in them, but that was exactly what it was, so she put it away for later as well.  
She didn't want to make the other woman feel bad though, so she said "Anyway, I, on the contrary of you, always do what I feel like doing and what feels right from my perspective."  
That succeeded in catching Anna's attention, whose head turned violently in her direction, for the millionth time in those days, and it hurted, a lot.  
The princess grimaced and put an hand on her sore neck, trying to alleviate the pain, and asked "Do you?"  
Aleera's eyes danced from the gipsy's owns and her neck, then she answered calmly "Yes, I do. And do you want to know what I feel like doing right now?" She stepped closer.  
Anna just nodded, grimacing again afterwards but still keeping her eyes on the approaching vampire.  
"This" the redhead murmured, sneaking her hand under the princess' one and starting to massage her neck expertly.  
She definitely knew what she was doing, because the gipsy closed her eyes and moaned softly, to which the vampire reacted by doubling her efforts, pleased.  
"So" Anna asked after a few moments of just enjoying the massage "You were saying…you only did what you felt like…doing with me? No fake gestures? No pretending?"  
Aleera smiled at how adorable the princess was when her guard was so low, and felt happy that she got to see her that way and known that in that little moment the other woman trusted her enough to relax.  
The redhead slightly scratched her skin, enjoying the feeling of it beneath her fingers, then she answered "None of those, only what I felt like doing."  
Anna opened her eyes again, and the intensity of her gaze made the vampire's hand to stop the massage.  
None of them had realised how close they were, and none of them cared.  
The princess' pupils were really dilatated right then, and they dropped south before going up again.  
Then the human spoke, her voice soft and low "And, consequences be damned, what do you feel like doing right now?"  
Aleera swallowed, her throat dry for something that had nothing to do with blood for once in her immortal life, and licked her lips, taking note on how the princess' eyes followed the movement, before answering "This."  
She slightly tightened her fingers on the other woman's neck and with a firm but slow movement pushed it forwards.  
Anna's heart was running wildly, and if it could, Aleera's one would have accompained it with pleasure.  
Chests filled with anticipation, they looked into each other's eyes one last time before closing them to finally let go of everything burdening them, as they put themselves first for once.  
And when only a breath remained between their disclosed lips, an unexpected sound broke the night's silence, and they froze on the spot.  
Because even if that sound was unexpected, it was all too much known.  
They stood there petrified, looking at the sky outside the cavern, but when they heard it a second time, both of them broke apart from the other.  
"Is it what I think it is?" Anna asked, her voice both worried and resigned.  
Aleera gritted her teeth, torn between frustration and happiness, and murmured with a tone that reflected both emotions "It is."  
One last regretful look at each other was all that remained of the beautiful, crucial moment they had just shared.

And then, when the sinister sound rang out a third time, they both knew to be back to the cruel, complicated reality they had left behind a few days before.

Because the vampires were coming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so unsure about the last part, because it's so strange to see them actually almost confronting each others...I hope it's not too soon for that, that was my greatest doubt...what do you think?


	9. Back to reality

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi!  
> I know I have said I would have tried to post this before or just after Halloween, but ideas kept popping on my mind, and I have added so much more things than I wanted to, so the chapter is a lot longer than I have anticipated.  
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did writing it!

The two women exchanged another look, before Aleera diverted her gaze and spoke "We have to go."  
Anna observed the vampire carefully.  
She took into the longing into her eyes as they looked at the dark sky outside, in the way her arms were slightly widened as if she was an instant away from taking off, and that hurt her. Her feet were firmly planted on the ground though, and when she turned around, the princess realised that maybe not all the longing in her hazel orbs was directed toward her monstrous family.  
That thought made her almost smile. Almost.  
The redhead's eyes went back and forth between her owns twice, before she murmured "Come on" and leaned her hand toward her.  
Anna's hand automatically reached for it, but stopped before their fingers could meet, uncertain.  
The vampire sighed and took a step forwards, gently grabbing her forearm "There is nothing to worry about."  
The princess scoffed, widening her eyes, and her voice was higher than usual when she talked back "Nothing to worry about? Dracula is out there with God knows how many vampires!"  
Aleera slightly tightened her hold on the other woman's arm in a reassuring way "None of them will hurt you."  
Anna lifted an eyebrow "None? What about your precious master?"  
A flash of annoyance crossed the redhead's face, but she remained calm when she answered "He made a deal with you, and he is a man true of his word, I assure you."  
The princess' answer was a resigned whisper "Why doesn't that reassure me?"  
Aleera studied her for a few instants, then she grabbed her other arm as well, looking at her straight in the eyes when she talked back "I won't let anything happen to you. I promise."  
That surprised the gipsy.  
She knew very well how loyal the vampire was to the count, so she wouldn't have made such a vow lightly. The fact that she actually did it made her want both to trust and distrust that promise. She did see the real desire to protect her into her hazel eyes though, so she decided to let it go.  
There would have been plenty of time for Anna to push it.  
Finally, the princess exhaled and nodded.  
She looked the sky outside the cavern and, seeing it clear, asked "Will they come up here or..?"  
Aleera let her go unwillingly and answered "No, it will be us to reach them."  
Then she leaned her hand toward her again, and this time Anna took it.  
"Can you make it?" The princess asked, while she turned her back to the redhead, letting her arms hug her waist from behind.  
"Yes, I have almost completely healed now" The vampire didn't take off immediately after that.  
Instead, she took her time in committing to her memory the wonderful sensation of having the human into her arms, soft and trusting her, the heat of her body against her own and her rich, unique smell.  
Anna too, was hoping for that moment to last as long as possible, knowing it could be the last for them to be like that together, vulnerable, caring for each others and without barriers between them and being whatever they wanted to be to each other.  
The princess knew the moment was over when she felt the vampire's arms tighten slightly around her waist and saw their color change to one in between light blue and purple.  
She only had the time to sigh deeply to harden herself before they took off.  
Anna's eyes wandered, eagerly taking in everything around them.  
If one ignored the supernatural noises that kept breaking the forest's silence, it could be considered a beautiful night, with the giant moon up in the sky and no clouds in sight.  
The princess really hoped it wouldn't have been her last one.

Aleera followed the call of her family, feeling both happy and worried to see them.  
Happy because she had missed them of course; spending all her time with them for the past centuries had made being separated from each others hard, even if it was for brief periods.  
But, maybe even more than that, she was worried. Extremely worried about the princess. Her mind told her that there was nothing to be afraid of, since she knew her Master didn't want to harm her.  
But what if He had changed his mind? What if He had decided that it was better and safer to just kill her? She had no voice in His decisions, which meant she had made a promise she wasn't sure at all to be able to keep.  
And she hated it.  
She hated the only idea of disappointing the princess, of giving her a sense of security just to take it from her when she needed it the most.  
But she hadn't lied: she would have done everything in her power to stop any harm coming in her way.  
Relieved by that thought, the vampire forced herself to calm down and flew faster toward her family, wishing nothing more than all of that to be over already.  
Her heightened senses took her to a clearing in the forest where she counted a little more than fifty restless vampires.  
One last reassuring squeeze at the princess' waist and she landed at some distance from the big group, turning back into her human form and immediately letting the human go.  
The vampires, all already turned toward them, hissed at the view of the gipsy, excited, and the redhead had to make a conscious effort to stop herself from hissing back at them threateningly and shielding the other woman's body with her own from their hungry eyes.  
Anna herself had to suppress the impulse to unsheathe her weapons. As useless for her defense as such gesture could be, in fact, it could instead succeed easely in provoking the monsters before her. And she knew it wasn't in her best interest to do so.  
The princess forced herself to stay calm then, and not draw more attention on her than she already had.  
She had never seen so many vampires gathered together, and she decided she didn't want to ever again.  
Anna would have liked to take a step closer to the redhead at her side, but that would have been appeared strange at their eyes, since normally she would have never done such a thing; the exact opposite, in fact.  
So, instead, she straightened her back and put her hands on her hips, in an imposing stance that had never failed to give her more confidence. Also, in that position she could have easely taken her silver stake out of her clothing and plant it in someone's chest very quickly if the circumstances required it.  
Almost immediately after their landing, the horde of vampires opened and the rest of what Anna would call "the royal family" emerged from it.  
Dracula and Verona had solemn and regal expressions on their faces, but when their eyes found the third member of their family, two smiles lighted them up.  
The redhead was already walking to them when the count leaned an hand toward her and greeted her "Aleera, my dear, you are a sight for sore eyes."  
As soon as she was in his arms, he brought her closer and kissed her deeply, caressing her skin.  
Both the vampires were genuinely happy to see each other after the time spent apart, and relieved to be together again.  
Dracula felt a shake to its internal void in seeing his redhead bride coming toward him with joy, relief and passion in her stunning hazel eyes. He took in the way her red hair danced like untamed flames into the air, in her voluptuous curves, in her perfect features.  
He had missed her, and not only because in the absence of a member their family felt weakened and incomplete. No, he had missed her as his bride, as his lover; he had missed her fire, her passion, her craziness.  
Those things lacked in his eldest bride, and that was exactly why the three of them were so perfect together: they compensate each others. The creation of their little and yet so harmonious group was certainly one of the things he was the most proud of.  
When their lips finally connected, his whole being burned with the need to feel her closer, to have her, to make her his in the most primal way, and to see her enjoy it and concede herself to him completely, and he almost felt alive again.  
Aleera too couldn't wait to be one thing with Him again, but with far less intensity than she was used to. It all felt more like an habit and a need to be with her Master than an actual desire. It felt like a great part of the fire she had always felt at the thought of Him was gone; and she suspected to know exactly where.  
Nonetheless, the lust, the feeling of belonging, the attraction were pretty much still there, and as intense as always, so she acted on them.  
When they finally separated, Aleera turned to Verona, and the other bride opened her arms, murmuring "welcome back" and kissed her in greeting as well, though their affections were shorter and less passionate than with the count, but still very much felt by both parts.  
The raven haired bride was the eldest, and as such she ordered the others around when their husband wasn't there, yes, but she also cared deeply for them and considered them her protégés; so seeing the younger vampire back from that dangerous mission certainly made her relieved and glad. And even though she had never been one of those vampires, like the redhead and Marishka had been, who while their husband was occupied with one of them searched affections with the other brides, well, she didn't despise them either.  
So she accepted gladly the kiss with her younger mate.  
When the brides separated, Dracula came closer, and the three of them stood still for a few moments, looking into each others' eyes and enjoying each others' presence. Their supernatural bond made the reunion even more intense. They all felt complete again, family again, strong again.  
If they had been alone in their castle, they would have immediately celebrated the newfound unity with another, more physical union; but they couldn't. They had more urgent matters to attend to.  
Anna, in the meanwhile, stood there, witnessing all of that with a disgusted grimace on her face, which wasn't hard to summon, with the burning jealousy she was feeling. After all, one thing was to know that the redhead was intimate with both the count and Verona; a totally different one was seeing it with her own eyes.  
She hated how comfortable they were around each others, how they touched the redhead as if they always had a thousand times before, how they got to do so and kiss her like that out in the open without a care in the world.  
And even more, she hated the looks they gave each others afterwards. They were so intense, so loud, so intimate that they made her almost lean forwards in longing. They alluded at something more, at something only them knew and only them owned. It must had been that famous bond Aleera mentioned before, the one she "couldn't hope to even begin to ever understand", quoting her.  
Anna pretended that it didn't hurt to remember that and to witness it firsthand, but it did, like hell.  
She knew that logically she could have never had that kind of empathy and connection with Aleera, but that didn't implied that she didn't wish it nevertheless.  
Then a thought struck her: maybe that was for the best. Because she had come to the conclusion that initially a great part of the attraction she had felt for the vampire was born from the attraction to the unknown, the mistery, the unfathomable. She had seen the other woman as something she could have never gotten, something beyond her reach and the one of her mind.  
Even then she didn't understand the redhead completely, and even if she wanted to, she desired for a knowledge built gradually, a little at time, in the humans' way. Receiving it all at once beacuse of some magical, supernatural bond didn't sound like something the princess would have liked very much. The gipsy loved the challenges after all, the rewards gained after hard work, not those given away easely.  
Furthermore, as said before, that didn't mean she couldn't create some kind of connection with the vampire at all. On the contrary, she would, and it would have been different from the one she had with her monstrous family, but it would have been unique and totally, completely theirs.  
That thought made her internally smile, and she felt better.  
Still, she kept her expression hard, and cleared her throat in annoyance at the vampires' sickly sweet ways, hoping to speed things up and gain their attention.  
She succeeded.  
The "royal family" looked at her almost immediately, and Anna noticed the difference between those gazes.  
Verona was, as always, very solemn, her expression so detached to seem almost bored and not at all interested in her, but the princess knew better; the eldest bride was the last enemy she would have ever underestimated.  
Dracula, well, he was looking at her with an intensity she had never witnessed before, and the shadow of a sinister smile floated on his lips, barely there, yet the gipsy could clearly see it. And she had to suppress a shiver for how uncomfortable it made her feel.  
And finally, she looked at Aleera. The redhead was, like Verona, still in the count's embrace, an hand on his chest, but, unlike the other bride, she wasn't completely leaning into him. The princess caught the difference and, even if it was very little, for her it had a great importance. She knew for certain that before their journey, the redhead would have dived in the man's arms as if to never emerge again.  
She would have smiled at that, if not for the vampire's expression. She seemed worried, dreading what would come next, and was watching her very carefully, studying her in return and drinking in her, as if she was expecting to never see her again.  
That was what Anna read in her expression, and she could be mistaken or exaggerating things, sure, but that was what her guts were telling her. She had a bad feeling, and the redhead's look wasn't really helping her to get rid of it.

Finally, the count spoke "Ah, Anna, I almost forgot that you were there, I apologise."  
The princess rolled her eyes in annoyance, and talked back "No need, as soon as you don't do the same for the truce."  
Dracula chuckled "I won't, I am a man true to my word. And, I must say I have been surprised to hear your proposition, and to see you willing to collaborate with us."  
Anna kept an hard expression "Yes, well, I didn't have much of a choice."  
"Arguable" the count smiled "I trust that your little adventure went well?"  
"It did, my Lord" answered Aleera this time, surprising the gipsy.  
The two of them exchanged a look, and after that Anna saw clearly the moment when vampire embraced her previous persona, as her smile turned evil and her hazel eyes shone mischievously, and she wasn't so sure to like that.  
Then Aleera winked at her just before turning completely to Dracula, and adding "We got along very well, didn't we Anna, my love?"  
And the princess understood that the vampire was only wearing her mask again to not arousing suspicions about the change in their dynamic, so she followed her, and answered, with an exasperated look "Yeah, so well I really don't know how will I survive without her company from now on." She marked heavily the sarcasm.  
She didn't expect what happened next though.  
"Oh, you don't have to worry too much about that, my dear" the count answered, with a smile all teeth.  
Even Verona, who the gipsy had never in her life seen laughing and very rarely even chuckling, smiled widely at the statement, a large, predatory smile, which contained little traces of hilarity though, as if she actually found it funny.  
Only Aleera had a totally different reaction. Her gaze darted toward the princess, her eyes wide and alarmed, before she caught herself and turned to Dracula again, chuckling forcefully.  
All of that worried Anna even more, but before she could said anything at all, the count spoke again "And where is the dent of our little fur balls?"  
"Not far from here my Lord" Aleera answered again "The princess found it tonight, she can explain it better than me."  
Once again, all the vampire's eyes where on the gipsy, waiting.  
Anna looked carefully at every single one of them, trying to find an explanation for what she was clearly missing, but to no avail. Vampires could be truly unreadable when they wished to, and, since their expression seemed to be mold into stone and gave nothing away, very successfully so.  
Finally, the princess decided to drop it and to ask the redhead about it later, and spoke "Just go north from here and follow the howls, you'll find them in an heartbeat."  
Dracula smiled and shouted "Heard her, ladies and gentlemen? Are you ready to have some fun?"  
The horde of vampires behind him screamed an assent, and they all became even more restless, moving on the spot, from one side of the clearing to the other, opening and closing their fists, showing their teeth.  
Anna almost felt sorry for the werewolves. Almost.  
Then she remembered the useless massacre of her people, and every empathy she could have had for those monsters burned in the flames of her fury.  
The scene before her made her smile slightly, and she almost wished to go avenge her fallens with them.  
Again, almost. Because she knew very well that she could not fight that battle.  
She was more than willing to stay back this time though. She missed her people, and had had enough of monsters for a while. Well, of all of them except one.  
Her eyes found the redhead again. The vampire was, like the rest of her family, looking at the crowd behind them with an excited light in her eyes, as if she was already smelling blood and couldn't wait to taste it. She had a feral smile on her face, just like all of them.  
When she turned around and met Anna's gaze, she kept it, but her eyes softened for a moment.  
She gave her a reassuring nod, as if to tell her that they did it, they succeeded, and that their kind would have handled it from that moment on. Seeing the general excitment at the idea of the battle, Anna dared to think that, for once, the destiny of her people was in good hands, giving the circumstances. Of course she would have preferred never to give it in the hands of the vampires, one of the worst plague on Earth, but as long as her people were safe, she couldn't complain.  
The redhead's gaze was telling her that as well. She didn't need to worry about that matter anymore, she had done all she could, and then it was others' turn to make their part. But the princess, she had succeeded, and she had to be happy about it. And proud of herself.  
That was another thing than shone in Aleera's eyes: pride.  
It warmed her heart.  
Because the vampire was looking at her not like she was enough, but like she was so much more than enough.  
It was something she had always wished to see in her people's eyes, but even before them, in her father's ones.  
With the life they had, though, she knew he could never look at her like that, because there would have never been a "more than enough" in what they did. Hell, it would have never been even "enough" as long as the vampires lived. So, the princess had told herself that if she had succeeded in killing Dracula, she would have seen that look in her father's eyes directed at her. But that had never happened, her beloved father had died and she had lost any hope to see that look for her, any hope to be even enough for her people, and it had become a foolish, secret dream in the drawer.  
Until then, when the last person she would have ever expected to look at her that way was doing just that.

And for that single moment between them, everything else became an exciting background of battle's cry and fists raised to the sky, and Anna felt fulfilled and happy, and she smiled at the redhead like she meant it.  
And Aleera smiled back at her, a full, sincere smile, no teeth in sight, only full lips and proud eyes.

Because that's exactly what she was: proud.  
Proud of the exceptional human being, of the remarkable woman she had spent those incredible days with.  
She was proud of the strenght she had showed in the mission.  
Proud of the fact that she was finally beginning to accept her feelings toward her, and that she was trying to face them, slowly, at her own pace, but she was. No more harsh words to push her away, no more coldness, no more running away from both the redhead and herself. It took no little courage to do that.  
Proud of the fact that, thanks to those feelings, she was finally freeing herself from the chains that her retrograde society and her own limited vision of a duty centered life had put on her. And that not only because it meant that maybe, maybe one day they will finally be that something more, but because the moment she freed herself, Anna would have truly shined, and Aleera couldn't wait to see that moment.  
Proud of the way she was standing there in an imposing stance in front of an howling crowd of bloodthirsty vampires without blinking, confident, authoritative and powerful.  
She was glowing, and she was beautiful.  
And Aleera was so, so attracted to that shining flame in front of her she would have burned in it without a second thought if only she could have a taste of it.  
Who was she kidding?  
She wanted it all, and not only that, but Anna as well. All of her.  
She became absolutely certain of it when the princess smiled at her like she meant it, as if she had understood what the redhead's smile and eyes only could say to her.  
And Aleera could do nothing less than smile back, thinking about how she couldn't wait to tell her all the motives for which the other woman should have been proud of herself.

Then Dracula, satisfied by his servants' reaction, broke their moment when he spoke "Very well then."  
He turned to his younger bride and said "Will you take the Valerious here back to the village before joining us in the battlefield? I know it won't be as fun as fighting some strays, but we made a pact and we have to respect it."  
Aleera smiled and leaned in to kiss him before answering "With pleasure my Lord."  
The count smiled down at her, then, looking at the princess, he added "You should be safe there, as we will block all the werewolves before they can escape the area."  
Anna just nodded, and he smiled strangely before going on "Then our truce will be no more, but we will see each other very soon, my dear. I promise you that."  
The princess didn't like the implications of the promise at all, but she had no time to talk back because a loud howl preceded her.  
She turned around and saw many yellow eyes shining between the trees in the dark.  
The woman had no time to count them, but she could say that there wasn't the whole pack before them. Still, it was quite a terrifying vision.  
"Well then, it seems we won't have to wait for the first round after all" the thin voice of the count broke the sudden silence.  
A roar and several snarls answered him from the dark, and Anna took a step to the side, before turning around.  
All the vampires were hissing, sharp claws on their hands and long canines in their mouths, eyes changing color and shining in challenge.  
The princess had just the time to notice how all the servants in the crowd had yellow eyes, while the royal family was different, it stood out from the mass.  
Dracula, despite what many legends told about him, had clear blue eyes, lighter than his human's ones, almost white, so much that they seemed to be made of ice.  
Verona had light blue eyes as well, not as clear as his, but still frightening enough that no one could have mistaken them as human; even more considering that her natural orbs were brown.  
And then, of course, there were the eyes that had haunted her for so long: Aleera's, which were purple, maybe the most unnatural between theirs, but, as far as Anna was concerned, the most beautiful as well.

She somehow had the time to notice all of that, and to wonder about the reason of the difference, when Hell broke loose.

The vampires behind the royal family runned or jumped forwards, an hissing mass of bloodthirsty monsters, and she heard the werewolves charging as well, growling and breaking trees down in the hurry.  
She saw Dracula and Verona turn into their bat forms, and taking off, maybe to watch over the battle from above.  
Aleera turned as well, but she hurried in her direction and took her into her arms, flying away before she could get trapped in the conflict.  
Anna put her arms around the vampire as well, relieved to see that she had no more trouble in keeping both of them up and safe, and looked over her shoulder to see the monsters fighting each others.  
The scene was so hypnotic she had trouble adverting her eyes even when the trees covered it completely.

"Anna? Are you alright?" The redhead's worried voice finally made her come back to the present.  
The princess hesitated only a moment before answering "Yes, I'm fine…that was.."  
"Quite intense, I know" The vampire finished for her.  
That wasn't the word Anna was thinking of, but it described the situation well enough. She was still tense, and not only because for the hundredth time death had been too much close to her for her tastes, but also because of what Dracula had said. She knew that the truce wouldn't have lasted forever, but she had the clear impression that she would have had not even the time to catch her breath.  
All that exchange had been very strange, and it had left her very much on the edge.  
"But, luckily it's over" the redhead went on, seeing that the princess didn't seem to want to replicate to her previous words anyway "I'll take you back to your castle, so you can have a proper rest in your bed for once."  
Anna furrowed her eyebrows, surprised by how much the other woman was talking without receiving and answer nor a gesture from her; it was unusual. She seemed almost nervous, which was even stranger since, like she said, there was no more need to, as the tense situation was over. Unless she was trying to convince of it not only herself, but more the princess instead. To make her relax and think of something else. Maybe that was it. The redhead probably knew that the gipsy was still pondering on the count's words, and wanted to stop her before she could conclude anything.  
Again, maybe Anna was imagining things, but she had a bad feeling. Had had it since the encounter with Dracula, and from the way Aleera had acted, she couldn't help but thinking that the redhead knew something that she didn't, and that, whatever it was, concerned her in a crucial way.  
Even if she was dying to, she couldn't confront the vampire right then in that moment though. She would have done that once they were safe, face to face, and not flying around at that speed. It wasn't the ideal situation, and she couldn't see her eyes like that, and she knew that for that conversation, she would have needed to.  
So the princess forced herself to relax her body and exhaled deeply, willing for all her anxiety to leave her at least for the lenght of the flight.  
Aleera perceived it, and she squeezed her waist with her arms almost tenderly, murmuring "You did good Anna."  
She didn't add anything else, but her calm voice and soft gesture helped in relaxing the princess even more, and she sighed and pressed her face in the crook of the redhead's neck in a silent thank you.  
She heard the vampire almost purr in reaction, and sighed.  
Anna wondered if their relationship would have always been as controversial as it was then, meaning, from her part, herself constanlty swinging between her mind doubting the vampire and her body, her heart, her sou…every other part of herself needing and wanting and helplessly leaning toward her.  
It was exhausting, but it also made her feel very much alive, so much more than she had ever been in her whole life.  
Well, she supposed only time could have answered her.  
That thought gave her a temporary but much needed peace of mind, which she welcomed at open arms, as she completely relaxed against the redhead's body, enjoying the closeness and the flight as much as she could.

Aleera could almost hear the other woman thinking restlessly at something, and if she wasn't so sure it had everything to do with her Master's words, she would have let it be, but she couldn't. That's why she had tried to make her stop and divert her attention from the matter.  
Only when she had felt the princess completely relax in her arms she had taken a relieved breath and relaxed as well.  
Then, as much as she wanted the time to stop itself and enjoy the closeness with Anna for longer than she actually could, she flew faster.  
Firstly because, as she herself had previously said, the gipsy needed a proper rest, and she would have made sure for her to get it.  
Secondly, she had to come back to her Master just afterwards. She looked quite forwards for the battle, and had no intentions of losing such a delightful opportunity for fun.  
So she flew as fast as her wings could take them, looking down at the forest that was darting underneath them.  
She pondered on how much briefer their journey would have been if she could have carried them both from the start of it as well, and follow the traces from above. Then, she thought that the way it went had been for the best, or she and the princess could have been still enemy, stuck in that frustrating and unbearable sexual tension with the human still not acknowledging it as before.  
No, it was much better that way.  
They had yet to face the matter directly, as well as going a long way before establish trust at equal parts from both sides, but they had certainly made progress from were they stood previously.  
Anna was more open with her, less cold and harsh, and, like right in that moment, way more relaxed in her presence than the vampire could have ever expected from her. And there had been some moments between them where it had been the princess the one who got worried for her, the one who had asked for her presence, and even the one who had started intimate contacts. That meant a lot.  
The redhead herself was grateful for the time she had gotten to spend with the other woman for it had been an unique occasion for seeing her without having to fight her and trying to kill her. It had been a mouthful of fresh air. And it had made things clear for the vampire. In fact, she had finally had the certainty that what she felt for the princess was not only lust and passion. They surely had been and still were a great part of it at the beginning, but then, after getting to know her better and spending more time with her, well…she couldn't deny to feel something more for her than she had originally thought.  
And that brought her an unnecessary and unwanted very big amount of problems.  
Those feelings, if indulged, would have turned her entire existence upside down. Yes, because it wasn't like the princess would have accepted to have any kind of sexual or romantic relationship with her while she was still bounded with her Master and Verona, she was sure of it, that would have been more than the human could have beared. And, well, since the only solution of keeping the old family and being with Anna at the same time was to make the princess part of it, the vampire doubted very much that that could be a solution to take in consideration at all. She knew for sure that the gipsy would have fought with all she had against being a part of those responsible of the cursed fate of her family.  
Not that that would have mattered, if her Master wanted to go through with his plan; the Valerious' will wouldn't have stopped Him and Verona.  
But what about herself?  
She had come to care for the princess, and for her will as well. So what would have she done then?  
Could she had enough loyalty toward her Lord to stand aside and let Him do as he wished, or, if He asked, even help Him make the princess one of them? Thay way, she would have had the woman anyway, but somehow the redhead highly doubted it would have been the same with her. And maybe before their journey she wouldn't have cared about that, as long as she got to have her physically, but then?�Well, she wasn't so sure anymore. She had come to really like the gipsy's fiery personality. She would have hated for it to be turned off by the resignation and the desperation of becoming something she despised so much against her will, and for the awareness of not succeeding in saving her own family from those same monsters. She would have never shined as she was destined to; she would have become an hollow shell instead.  
Aleera felt bad for a moment at the thought of that future; it didn't suit the princess at all.  
And the worst part of it was that the redhead could actually do something to prevent it. But she was completely stuck between an hammer and an hard place.  
On one side there was Anna, the beautiful gipsy princess that had attracted her like a magnet from day one, even if they were archenemies, for which she was feeling something deep that made her feel more alive than she had in years; it could be the beginning of something amazing.  
On the other side, though, there was Dracula, the one and only one man she had ever loved, the one who had given her a new, extraordinary life, and Verona, which had been her family for centuries; she just couldn't imagine living in a world where they were no more.  
Because that was what was in stake for her.  
Anna or her family.  
The safety and stability of her past and present and the uncertainty of a new, different future.  
She knew she just loved to take risks, but that was a pretty big one to take, one that would have changed the rest of her life permanently.  
Furthermore there was the fact that even if she chose the princess, how long would have it lasted? What if their passion had burned out and what remained wasn't enough to keep them together? And even if that didn't happen, how long before the princess died? She was human, and probably would have wanted to stay like that her whole life, and that implied she had enemies which the vampire couldn't protect her from, like oldness, illnesses, heart attacks and only the Devil knew how much more others.

It was inevitable: if Anna chose to remain human, someday, no matter how much the redhead didn't want her to, she would have died, and Aleera would not.  
So, the real question was: was it worth it to throw aside everything safe and sure about her life to embrace something new that would have made her feel alive again, if it was only for a few years, or even less?

Then of course there were so much more points she had to take in consideration, like the fact that Anna wouldn have probably kept disapproving her way of live, her diet mostly, while her family would have never judged her for that obviously, and instead they were the only ones who could truly understand her and her nature, since they shared it.

But the most important matter was the previous one: was it worth it?

Aleera sighed deeply, not knowing the answer just yet.  
First and foremost, she needed to talk about it with the very cause of her troubles, meaning the princess herself.  
She didn't know when though: rigth there flying into the night wasn't the right moment, and she had the order to go immediately back after taking the woman to a safe place. And after that, if they won the battle, which she had very little doubts about, her Master would probably want to act on his plan. Maybe not right after the fight, but surely He wouldn't have waited too long; He had said so to the Valerious Himself after all.  
Maybe if she succeeded in sneaking out and reach the princess while the Master and Verona were busy commading their servants around after the battle she could have tried to talk to her then. It sounded a very fragile plan even in her own head.  
Or, if her Lord wanted the woman brought at their castle, she could volunteer herself to be the one to do it. Yes, that was a far better option.  
Satisfied with herself, Aleera finally relaxed in turn, willing for her anxious thoughts to slip away with the awareness to reconsider them later, and enjoyed the flight as much as she could.

When the village finally came into sight, Aleera squeezed the princess' waist to warn her "We are here."  
At that, the gipsy turned her head and smiled at the sight of her home, and even more when she realised that above the little sounds of the inhabitants' life, no threatning howls or frightened screams could be heard; the atmosphere was calm and peaceful.  
The vampire sensed her happiness to be finally home, so she slowed down considerably, letting the princess take in the village completely, absorbing every detail and studying the differences.  
Also, the redhead really wanted to stay a little longer in that position, with the woman so relaxed in her arms, so she didn't mind at all to take her time in flying above the houses.  
She kept them up in the sky though, since she didn't want to alarm the population, and, consequently, ruin the calm that was reigning over the village.  
It was a nice sight, not the most beautiful or breathtaking one she had ever seen, but still, everything so white, the snow still falling slowly and covering the rooftops, making them look strange and soft, and the big moon up in the dark sky feebly illuminating the scene. The redhead hoped its light was enough for Anna's eyes.  
Judging by the fact that the princess was still turned toward the village in absolute silence, it probably was.

Then, the Valerious asked "You get to see the world like this every time you fly?"  
Her tone was soft and amazed, and Aleera smiled fondly at the sound "Yes, I do."  
One of the princess' hands slipped till it rested on the vampire's unbeating heart when she murmured, eyes still wandering on the scene before them, trying to commit it to her memory "It must be beautiful."  
The redhead instinctively moved her gaze on the woman in her arms when she softly answered "It is."  
She swallowed when she realised she wasn't talking about the possibility of seeing the world from up there anymore, and it was probably very obvious.  
In fact, the princess' gaze immediately met her own, attracted like a magnet from it.  
A flash of awareness crossed her features, and the vampire knew that she had gotten the not so subtle meaning of her words.  
The vampire suddendly felt very self conscious, and internally grimaced at the thought that maybe she would have done better to create that situation when she was in her human form. She could only imagine how she looked like: a diabolical, pale creature, with monstrous features, pointed ears, blue skin, canines' tips visible on her bottom lip, and purple, unnatural eyes. All of that illuminated by the pale light of the moon, which surely made it even worse.  
Yes, it probably was a very beautiful sight at an human's eyes.  
The princess was the only one capable of making her doubt her own beauty. Because she had never had a problem with the look of her bat form before, even if she knew that if wasn't as beautiful as her human's one. But seeing the stunning woman she was sharing that moment with, she couldn't help but wish she was in her other form.  
Those thoughts made her advert her gaze, and slightly turn her head, self conscious of her monstrous appearance more than ever and, for the first time, ashamed of it.  
But then happened something that surprised her.  
A warm hand on her cheek made her turn her head again toward the princess.  
And there, bathing in the moonlight, there was Anna, her features soft and her eyes intense, looking at her as if she didn't care about her diabolical look, but only about the real person behind it.  
Her cheeks were slightly blushed, and a timid smile decorated her full lips, and Aleera felt herself falling all over again, and had to do a conscious effort to keep beating her wings steadily.  
The gipsy smiled wider and stroke her skin with her thumb in a delicate caress, appreciating her words and their not so subtle meaning without saying it.  
For one, single beautiful moment, it was enough for both of them.

Then, Anna broke their intense stare to look at her castle, and murmured "We should go."  
The vampire just nodded and, a little slower than she would have done in an ordinary situation, she resumed flying toward their destination.

For a few minutes, neither of them spoke, both too overwhelmed by what had just happened.  
Then, it was Anna again the one who broke the silence "Land near the front door."  
The vampire complied without talking back, and in a moment they were on the ground and the princess was knocking loudly on the wooden door.  
It didn't take long before they heard hurried footsteps approaching, then the tired face of the friar appeared, his blue eyes widening comically when he saw them.  
"Anna!" He exclaimed, taking two steps forwards before looking at the vampire and stopping dead in the track.  
The princess smiled and closed the distance between them though, not worried in the slighest about the redhead behind her, and grabbed the hand the man was offering, greeting him in turn "Hi Carl!"  
"You are back! And you are okay?!" He half asked half affirmed, quickly looking up and down the gipsy's body, which Aleera didn't particularly appreciated, and she made it known by taking a step closer to them and narrowing her eyes at him.  
The friar immediately noticed, and stepped back, his hand finding the crucifix on his neck by instinct. He didn't know what he did wrong, though, and looked at the vampire with a puzzled expression on his face.  
At that the princess briefly turned around to cast an interrogative glance at the redhead, and whispered "behave" at her, to which the bride rolled her eyes, but relaxed her posture.  
Then Anna smiled again and said "Yes, I'm fine, and our werewolves' problem is being dealt with as we spoke."  
Carl lifted an eyebrow in surprise "Is it?"  
At that the vampire hissed lightly, annoyed, and stepped forwards till she was aligned with the other woman "You dare not believing her, little human?"  
Anna lifted both her eyebrows in turn, utterly surprised and slightly amused, while said little human took two steps back in fear, stuttering "I-I didn't mea…that's not at all what I inten…"  
"It better not be." The eyes of the redhead stood unmoved on the friar, hard and cold, as she added "Because she had risked her life several times to protect yours; the least you could do is acknowledge it and show some respect."  
Seeing that Carl was practically shaking on the spot, Anna took pity on him, and she put herself between them and said "Okay, that's enough. He wasn't disrespecting me, he was just surprised, right Carl?"  
The friar nodded as vigorously as if his life depended on it, and the princess suppressed an amused smile and went on, turning to the redhead and softening her tone "So relax okay? Let's not let our nerves to get the best of us now."  
The vampire eyes' went from the man to her and back and nothing more indicated that the bride had listened to a word the gipsy had said, but her body relaxed and her fists unclenched, so Anna took that as a victory.  
A moment of silence, than the friar, with a nervous look toward the redhead, asked "So how did it go?"  
Anna opened her mouth to answer him, then closed it, thinking.  
She wanted to tell him that the werewolf wouldn't probably be a problem anymore; them or the vampires anyway, even if she doubted the latters. So, the reinforces they were waiting for weren't needed anymore, but she couldn't say that in front of Aleera, now, not after she had told the vampire that Van Helsing and his very present friend had run off out of fear of Dracula's brides.  
Which reminded her that if the redhead asked her, she would have had to explain the reason of her lie and the friar's presence there in her castle. And, since the bride was no fool, she would have also probably asked how came that the brave warrior who had killed Marishka had fled, while the fearful assistant was still there.  
It was more than a bit suspicios.  
The princess sighed deeply: she could already feel a migraine coming.  
Aleera heard her though, and mistook her reaction out of tiredness, so she took another step forwards and said "The journey went fine, but it was exhausting. The princess need to rest."  
Said princess shot her an annoyed look, but then she added "Yes, Carl, I would like to tell the story to the whole village's council, so I don't have to repeat myself."  
The man nodded "I totally understand. I'll send one of your man to the councilors to tell them to come here.."  
"Tomorrow, late in the morning" the redhead concluded for him, with a glare that alone told him that that was it.  
The friar swallowed, then, with a great effort, moved her gaze away from the vampire and on the gipsy again, and said, his voice trembling and more acute than usual "I'd actually like to talk to you about something else, Anna.."  
Aleera took another step forwards, deeply annoyed.  
Had she stuttered when she had affirmed that the journey had been exhausting? Or had the stupid man thought that she had implied that for herself? He knew that she was far more resilient than any living ordinary man, right?  
Anna needed to rest, and she surely wouldn't have allowed that patetic individual in front of her to keep her from her bed, or to delay her return to her Master and Verona.  
The vampire failed to keep her eyes from flashing purple in warning, and, not displeased at all by it, said, with a soft, almost threatening tone "Was I unclear when I said that the princess need to rest? Whatever it is that you have to discuss with her that as well as your curiosity, can certainly wait until the late hours of tomorrow morning, can't they?"  
The friar paled visibly and would have gladly take another few hundred steps back, except he was already met with the stone wall after one, so he hastily replied "Yes, of course they can!"  
"Well then" Aleera smiled, all perfect teeth in sight, and yet it was nothing if not a dangerous smile, and added "You can wish her a good night and dissipate from my sight."  
The man actually had the guts to hesitate, but when the vampire's eyes returned purple, he hurried to say "Goodnight Anna!" and moved as fast as he could toward his room, trying in the meantime to make himself look smaller.  
It was quite an amusing scene, and the princess would have laughed if the target of it wasn't her…"friend" (?) and if she didn't have to speak with this friend urgently. She made a mental note of going to his room afterwards, when the redhead had left and they could discuss what they had to privately.  
So instead she turned around with a lifted eyebrow, giving the other woman a pointed look.  
Aleera caught it, and asked, with the most puzzled and innocent expression in the world "What?"  
Anna shook her head, exhaled loudly and turned around, taking the stairs to go up to her bedroom.  
She didn't hear the vampire follow her, but she didn't doubt her to do so for a second.  
And she wasn't disappointed.  
When the princess entered her room, she left the door wide open and walked till she reached the window, which she opened as well. She leaned her hands on the sill and stared at the village. Her family castle overlooked on everything, and yet the view wasn't as breathtaking as she found it before seeing the world between the arms of a flying vampire.  
To be fair, she thought that it was more the company and less the highness which had changed her mind.  
A little smile brushed her lips, but she forced her expression to become serious again when she heard the door closing behind her.  
Anna turned around and asked "Was it really necessary to scare Carl to death just because he was fairly curious about our mission?"  
The redhead shrugged, unperturbed by the gipsy's scolding tone "Maybe not so necessary, after all, but it certainly was fun."  
She smiled mischievously and gave her a look that told her that she had seen right through her downstairs, that it didn't matter that she hadn't laughed out loud or not even smiled; the bride knew that Anna had had fun as well as she did.  
"What is his deal anyway?" The vampire asked, taking a few steps into the bedroom, looking around with interest "Why has he decided to stay? He is not fit to live in a land of monsters."  
Anna shrugged as smoothly as she could when she answered "Maybe. But his love for science and things beyond it its stronger than his fear from what he told me."  
That caught the redhead's attention: she turned instantly toward her, coming closing before asking "Why, have you spend much time talking with him?"  
Aleera herself was surprised by the jealousy that made her crave for the answer.  
She knew it was totally irrational, it was that pathetic man downstairs they were talking about after all. He could not be Anna's type, he couldn't even look at her straight in the eyes, not even when hers were human. She herself had seen the awkward way in which he behaved with the princess, which meant she didn't have much experience with women either.  
And yet, the two of them had smiled at each others, had seemed relieved if not glad to see each others, and that had made the vampire very unhappy. Moreover, he was human, and that alone meant he would have been ahead on her in a potential competition for the gipsy's heart.  
Useless to say that the fact that the princess had taken his parts when she had just tried to save her a long and boring conversation when all she needed was a night long rest, well, hadn't helped at all.  
And then, hearing that he and the princess had had a conversation about what he feared and what he loved…thinking about it, it would take nothing for Aleera to run downstairs and and his pathetic existence, and she could easely take his body where no one would even think about looking…  
"What is your problem with Carl?"  
The princess' voice interrupted her murderous thought before they could go too far away, luckily; because they were so, so close to reach that dark place in herself where resisting from temptation was incredibly hard and resist to the call of blood and revenge and possessiveness was even harder.  
Aleera lifted her gaze, but Anna was already going on "Anyway, everyone would guess that he is not a man of action, but he is the mind behind all the toys his friend had used on you and the other brides. And even if not all of them had worked, I bet they weren't pleasant be aimed by. And even less pleasant to feel them against your skin."  
When the vampire didn't answer, but clenched her jaw at the memory, the princess hurried to conclude "So, as you have witnessed by yourself, he does have a talent that could help him surviving in this land of monsters."  
She took a few steps towards the redhead "To answer your question no, I haven't spent much time talking with him, but I assure you this were very easy things to guess after what you have seen."  
The redhead gave a disinterested hum in reaction, and her eyes resumed scanning the bedroom.

Aleera craved more of the princess, and couldn't help looking around her home, her bedroom, her belongins, desperate to get to know her more, understand her more deeply, found a connection with her that could go beyond their differences and every other things that kept the vampire from having interactions with her like the friar had, so beautiful in their simplicity.  
They were things she struggled with, and even if she knew that an hurried look at the other woman's private rooms couldn't help her very much in her search, well, she couln't keep herself from looking anyway.

It was frustrating how well guarded and difficult to reach was the princess most inner self.

Even there, in her bedroom, she had very few personal effects, and there wasn't much more they could tell about the gipsy than what everyone could just by observing her. A copy of the big family painting downstairs hung up, a man' sword which probably belonged to her deceased father, another painting of the princess and her brother when they were still children..  
The last one chaught her attention, and she came closer to have a better look at it.  
The redhead almost smiled at the image.  
The siblings were all dressed up and had serious but bored expression on their faces, and Aleera could see by Anna's eyes only that she was just dying to go and cause troubles somewhere else. For a moment it hit her how she had guessed such a thing by a formal painting alone, or how she wasn't able to say if the same thing was true also for the gipsy's brother, even if he had the exact same expression of her sister.  
Maybe she was wrong? She had to know.  
"Were you a troublemaker child?" She asked, turning around.  
Anna blinked a few times, caught off guard, before answering "Yes, actually" a pause, then she looked at the painting, smiling fondly at the memory of the fun she had had with her brother in making that long afternoon even longer for the painter, and felt the need to add "Velkan as well, but I was the worst between the two of us."  
The redhead smiled, happy to know that she had read the paint right, and that she had gotten the chance to know the woman in front of her enough to do so.  
Then another picture caught her eyes: a small one on her drawer, wich portrayed a middle aged woman, almost identical to Anna.  
Aleera came closer, furrowing her eyebrows, and asked "This is your mother?"  
The princess froze.  
She didn't quite know how to feel in seeing the redhead looking around in her bedroom and being so interested in her personal things; she was both flattered and on alert. She wanted to share more with the vampire and in the same time ask her to leave.  
There weren't much things she was attached to, but her family's relics and paintings, well, those were the last things that remained of her beloveds, and she didn't share them with many people. On the contrary, she usually didn't share them with anyone but her brother, when both of them were nostalgic or had had too much to drink and wanted to remember the old days, when their family was still united.  
She only had a few memories about that time, and she valued them more than any material thing she possessed. Velkan was older than her though, so he had shared a few more anecdotes in time, and she would always be grateful to him for that.  
But then he was gone as well.  
And those paintings in the safety of her bedroom were the last memento of them, the things that would never failed to remind her how they looked like, and to keep bonded to themselves more memories; memories she would never forget only by looking at them.  
So sharing them with the redhead, so soon and moreover considering that the biggest part of her family had died at the hands of the kind of the vampire in front of her, well. It was a bit too much, much more than Anna could bear right then, emotionally exhausted like she was, anyway.  
The princess moved between the vampire and the painting, lifted an hand to slowly caress the frame and murmured "Yes."  
She remembered very little of her mother, since she had died when she was very young, but she remembered the love her figure had always trasmitted to her, the warmth of her embrace, the softness of her voice when she used to sing her a lullaby to help her sleep…  
And yet, she was not ready to share all of that with the other woman.  
The princess sighed and for a moment thought about putting the painting face down on the drawer, but then decided against it. It was her bedroom after all, and that was her mother's home as well, so why should she hide her image when the only one out of place there was the vampire snooping between her things?  
The gipsy turned around, her eyes a little harder than before, her body shielding her mother's image from the hazel eyes of the redhead, and, just like that, her walls were up again.  
Aleera slightly tilted her head, taking in the princess' new posture, and immediately understood she had hit a soft spot unintentionally.  
She would have complimented the beauty of the woman in the painting, but something in the detached look of the gipsy told her that the princess wouldn't have appreciated that. Not right then anyway.  
So the redhead carefully spoke "I'm sorry if I have overstepped, I didn't mean to upset you. I was just trying to…" she did an impotent gesture with her hand to indicate the room "see if I could know more about you by looking around here. I didn't realise how inappropriate it was. I ask for your forgiveness."  
The princess posture and expression softened considerably at her words.  
She relaxed and came closer to the redhead, so close that she could feel her tepid breath on her cheeks.  
That made her slightly furrow her eyebrows, and she asked "Why are you breathing?"  
The vampire gave her a look so embarassed that the gipsy knew for sure if she could have blushed she would have, and her hands closed into fists for a moment before she apparently calmed down and murmured "Your scent is everywhere here."  
Anna lifted an eyebrow in a silent "so?"  
The redhead moved her weight from one foot to the other, clearly uncomfortable, and yet her intense gaze didn't leave her when she added "I like it very much."  
Aleera did a conscious effort not to advert her eyes as she confessed it.  
It had been a spontaneous gesture to start breathing the princess' rich scent when she was completely satiated and could enjoy it without putting the other woman in danger.  
From the moment she had stepped into the bedroom she had wanted to take everything Anna's in, her belongings, the memories tied to them and her incredible scent, that she had come to unconsciously love so much during those days spent together.  
She hadn't even realised that herself, not before the gipsy had come closer and asked her about it. And even then, she had had a moment of loss, because the princess' closeness was so damn distracting in such moments.  
She felt extremely vulnerable, also because she was asking for her forgiveness, for the first time since they had "known" each others. But, she was a grown woman and a vampire, and she would have not being a coward and backed away from the Valerious physically or emotionally. Yet, it had been extremely embarassing to be caught doing something so silly and have to explain it.  
The princess didn't seem to think that, though.

She slightly tilted her head and asked, with the shadow of a smile on her lips "Is that so?"  
The vampire just nodded, returning the intensity of her gaze.  
The gipsy hummed, then asked again "Does it have anything to do with my blood being so of your liking?"  
The redhead's eyes seemed to burn her when she confessed "No, not anymore."  
"It's just so uniquely yours that I can't help breathing it all in" she would have added, but she had a feeling that too many words were unnecessary at that point.  
Anna studied her eyes for a moment, then her smile became much more than a shadow on her lips, and she questioned her again "So, do you want to know more about me?"  
There was no more time for anything else but honesty, and the vampire knew it; that's why she eagerly answered "Desperately."  
Another little step forwards as the Valerious spoke again, incapable of stopping herself "And why is that?"  
The redhead swallowed, her hazel eyes found the princess' lips for a moment, and then came back up, soft and vulnerable and more human than the gipsy had ever seen them "You know why."

And Anna did. She could see it reflected in those beautiful orbs in front of her.  
Somehow her hands found the vampire's face, and it felt right, it felt like belonging.  
It felt even better when the other woman seemed to melt at her gentle touch.  
And then the princess realised that she didn't want the redhead to leave, that moment suspended in time to end.  
She wanted to stay like that for as long as they could, she wanted the other woman to try again in figuring her out and get to know her more, to ask her questions and to be vulnerable with her like she felt when she was with the vampire.  
She wanted the redhead to stay.  
There was no time for anything else but honesty; the Valerious knew it as well, so she spoke her heart.

"Stay" Anna asked her, her hands caressing the vampire's cheeks, her gaze intense as it had never been before "Stay here with me."  
Aleera gently grabbed her wrists and took her hands away from her face, and kissed them sweetly before saying "You know I can't do that. You heard Him, I have to go back there."  
"I'm asking you not to" if gazes could nail people down to the ground, there would have been no need for the princess to ask, so much was the force she was putting in her eyes, trying to keep her there with any mean possible.  
The redhead sighed, and her eyes turned apologetic "It's my family fighting out there for your people Anna, I can't let them do that alone."  
The other woman sighed deeply, adverting her eyes for a moment.  
That was a big obstacle between them, the vampire's family, one that they could not overcome in a night, and the princess knew that. Still, it hurted to see her choosing them over her. Not that she could actually blame her, since she would have done the exact same thing, but still.  
She was a warrion, and she knew when the time was right to fight her battle, and then? That wasn't the right time for than one. So, just like she had once before that day, she decided to step back from it, much more unwillingly than the previous time though.  
When she met her gaze again, she saw real regret and longing in the vampire's hazel eyes, and she realised that there was a tiny possibility that she wouldn't see her again if she let her go. Her kind could be hurt and killed by the werewolves same as humans after all.  
And yes, she knew that, being a bride, the redhead probably wouldn't have had fought at all. She had seen Dracula and Verona fly upwards, out of the werewolves' reach, when the battle had begun, which meant that the count surely wouldn't want her to take any chances as well, so.  
But still, unexpected happened.  
And the princess had seen too many people she cared about die to just let her go without doing anything she could to convince her to stay.  
And yet there was a determination in the redhead's eyes that reminded her of her own, when it concerned doing her duty for her people. So she had known, the moment she had caught sight of it, that she could't have stopped her.

But there was another thing that she could have asked her.

Anna took a deep breath, gathering the courage she knew she needed, and freed her hands from the vampire's hold.  
Aleera's expression saddened, and she murmured "Anna…"

And then the princess kissed her.

She put her hands back on her cheeks, where they belonged, and kissed her with everything she had.  
The redhead froze for a second, or maybe even less, before returning the kiss with the same passion, laying an hand on the other woman's waist and the other on her nape and pulling her closer.  
It was ardent, overwhelming, fulfilling.  
It was everything.

When Anna finally pulled back, she asked the redhead one last thing "Come back."  
Both their breaths heavy, pupils dilatated and hands slightly shaking, the two women, the two archenemies looked at each others as if they never wanted to stop.  
Aleera's eyes went down at the princess' lips, as if she still couldn't believe what had just happened, that she had finally tasted them for real, after so many times imagining how it would have been, and then, all she had to do was lean forwards and have another taste. Or lick her own lips, which was exactly what she did, slowly, in wonder.  
Then, the vampire finally met the gipsy's eyes again, and promised "I will."

A last glance full of desires and promises, and she was gone, flying away toward a battle she could come back from, or not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooo what do you think?  
> Personally, I like this chapter very much, it's my favourite by far!  
> I hope you liked the scene of our two ladies Flying over the village, and mostly also the one at the end ;D  
> The one about Anna's family's relics has come to my mind while I was writing, I hope it fits!  
> Also, tell me what you think about the paragraph division, I have tried to use it differently to highlight the crucial point!  
> I don't honestly know when the next chapter will be up, but I hope you will stick around!


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